The 2nd Amendment and US

US as in the United States. Us as in "us", the people, the whole entire populace. There has been quite a lot of debate lately regarding gun control and the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. This is a good thing, a very good thing, as we should be having this conversation. A healthy debate, out in the open, is good for our society; the more we can discuss these issues in some semblance of rationality the better chances we have of arriving at good legislative policy. At least, that is my hope.


Unfortunately the rhetoric on both sides is often times too ugly and over the top. I am sure you all have seen it, people calling each other names, which does nothing but alienate, and in no way advances either sides' arguments. It seems that we, as a society, drop right down to name calling all to easily these past few years, which I find both sad and exhausting. How can I possibly reason with someone when their entire argument is predicated on labeling me a "liberal" or a "radical" or "bleeding heart" or some combination of the previous plus whatever other name might be used? Answer: I cannot, and all too often I will fire back the name calling, which leaves us both frustrated and no further along than when we started.


I dont know, it seems perfectly obvious to me that as a society we are awash with guns and are suffering under an epidemic of gun violence. I dont use these words lightly, I have been observing this situation for years, and I think (operative words being "I think") the evidence backs me up: mass shootings have been on the rise, every day someone dies due to gun violence, , we have far and away the highest incidents of gun violence in the Western World, and the costs to our society are staggering. I hope we can agree that this is a problem that needs addressing, that we as a society should be looking at all sides of this issue and examining every angle. This in no way means I am in favor of a certain position, or not, more that at this point I dont think we should be throwing out any suggestion based on a source, or how a the person making the suggestion votes politically, but examine each suggestion for its merits and then come to a decision to discard or move ahead.


Of course, me being me, I do have some suggestions for policy, but what I want to make clear at this point is that I do not believe the 2nd Amendment, or the Constitution, to be a monolithic, never-changing document. There have been many changes and amendments to the US Constitution, as there should be, as our so-called "Founding Fathers" intended. The Constitution was never designed to written in stone, but was intended to change as the times needed. So we no longer count slaves as 3/5s of a vote, we no longer allow slavery, and all native born or naturalized citizens have the right to vote, are just three of many changes to the Constitution that have happened since it was written. We should celebrate this aspect of our government, that our Constitution is this elastic, which allows our governnment to change and adapt over time to circumstances. As a history major I shudder to think what might have been the outcome if Lincoln and Johnson (the gentleman who followed him in office) were not able to pass the necessary amendments to outlaw slavery, the entire slaughter of the Civil War would not only have been in vain, nothing would have been settled, and we may very well have ended up with two seperate countries.


So what I want to argue here is that we should not be looking upon the 2nd Amendment as utterly inflexible, never changing, forever static. The text of the amendment is as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

At the time it was written this was a crucial piece of legislation, as we had recently fought a civil war (yes, it was a civil war) against the British Government, this amendment was key to helping secure the populace against any future incursions by the British, which was a viable fear at the time. It was also reasonably thought that a armed populace could be a natural inhibitor to a dictatorship being setup in the new country. Thus when it was written the 2nd Amendment made sense, it seemed a natural outgrowth of the desire of the populace to protect itself, from enemies foreign and domestic. Nowadays I am not so sure as it seems to me that we have a strong military that is able to project power abroad when needed (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force) while being able to secure our borders (Coast Guard, National Guard), thus making the need for a well regulated militia much less needed or relevant. It also occurs to me that the idea that a well regulated militia will be some kind of bulwark against a possible native dictatorship to be terribly unrealistic, because if a dictatorship were to sieze the reins of power and control the military, any militia uprising would be swiftly and easily crushed.


The other part of the 2nd Amendment is the right to bear arms, which might be the most thorny aspect of the Amendment. It has been interpreted in some corners as meaning that any form of government, from the Federal all the way down to the local, can not infringe on any individual's right to own firearms. Its my opinion that this is both a too broad and self-defeating interpretation, as it allows for no changes for mitigating circumstances of, say, possibly regulating assault weapons (more on this in a bit) and forecloses any discussion about possibly changing the Amendment, if not throwing it out altogether. Not that I am advocating doing away with the Amendment, more that I am arguing for allowing a discussion and examination of the idea.

But what I do earnestly believe is that we should be banning the sale of assault rifles to civilians, as there is no real societal benefit to civilians owning these kind of weapons. If we hearken back to the time when the 2nd Amendment was written, the kind of weapons used were breech loading single shot rifles and pistols; there was no such thing as automatic weapons. While there is a definite usage for automatic weapons in the military, I fail to see what possible use there is for these weapons to be in private hands, except to kill other civilians. As we allow our government to regulate various aspects of our country's "common space", everything from our national forests to medicines, the highway system, product safety, and the public airwaves, why should guns be exempt? As we insist the government regulate and enforce safety regulations on cars (seat belts and air bags for instance) why is it that guns be above regulation when their very purpose is to kill?


Again I am not advocating wholesale dumping of the 2nd Amendment as there are very tangible usages for guns, hunting and police work come immediately to mind. I also am very loath to strip away anyone's Constitutional rights as once a right is taken away by a government they are very reluctant to give it back. But it seems to me that we can achieve a balance, whereby we regulate, or ban, the sale of automatic weapons, high capacity ammo clips, and other aspects of guns that are used solely for rapid fire killing of other humans, without infringing on anyone's inherent overall right to own other, less lethal, type of guns.