Target Practice

Does America love guns more than it loves its children? We’re about to find out.

 

I seriously doubt that reason, logic or facts will prevail in the debate on guns. The shrill, red-faced screeds of those who will brook no exceptions or constraints on their rights to own weapons of mass destruction in one sense cannot be debated and yet I feel compelled to try.

It’s About Tyranny

The argument in favor of individual ownership of assault rifles (and presumably everything else from RPG’s to howitzers) is that the 2^nd Amendment is designed to protect us from the tyranny of our own government. It’s true that the founding fathers had a healthy fear of all forms of tyranny and those that favored state’s rights and a loose confederation of states looked with suspicion at those who favored federalism. The 2^nd Amendment was written to acknowledge the practices of the British who attempted to short-circuit the Revolution by seizing armories where local militias had stored guns, powder and shot and to provide some assurances that the states of this new United States of America would have the means to resist the potential tyranny of the newly formed federal government.

Let’s go to the text…

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.

What the 2^nd Amendment guarantees is that each of the states would be able to raise a militia to secure its freedom, and recognized that militias of the day relied on their irregulars bringing their own weapons with them. The 2^nd Amendment is about the rights of individuals to own guns only in the context of membership in a state militia. That it has been used to justify individual gun ownership regardless of context doesn’t change what was actually written, it’s somewhat tortured syntax notwithstanding.

Let’s note that word “regulated” for those who believe the 2^nd Amendment provides for unfettered rights to individuals to own guns.

It’s 1776 All Over Again

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the infamous Alex Jones appearance on Piers Morgan in which he insists that should Obama and his liberal goons come for his guns it will be 1776 all over again.

I understand Jones was trying to connect a ban on assault weapons in 2012 to the British seizures of arms in 1775 but the notion that citizens would resist federal authority seems a lot more like 1860 than 1776 to me. Those who seceded from the union in 1860 tried to make their cause about individual and state’s rights, too, even though being pro-slavery was hardly as controversial a position in 1860 as being pro-child murder is in 2012.

Come to think of it, being pro-child murder has probably always been a controversial position.

The resistance of states to the authority of the federal government – much like the organized resistance of the colonies to the British government – puts the 2^nd Amendment and its intent front and center. Whatever their justification for secession, it was states and their militias – not random, individual citizens – who fought the Civil War.

Perhaps people like Alex Jones think the governors of various states will rally to their cause rather than answer the calls of bereaved parents for some real and effective response to the most heinous, murderous act in recent memory. Perhaps they choose to ignore the differences in technology, geography and geopolitical realities between 1776 and 2012; perhaps they choose to ignore how things played out in the Civil War.

More importantly, perhaps, they choose to ignore the cultural reality that most of us are now more interested in seeking ways to protect the lives of innocent children than we are in protecting the rights of someone as emotionally unhinged as Alex Jones to own a gun.

Seriously, did Alex Jones shrill, red-faced, spittle spattered defense of gun ownership make you feel better about individual ownership of assault weapons with extended clips?

Video Killed the 2^nd Amendment

So, the root cause of gun violence isn’t guns; it’s videogames, television and movies and Obamacare.

I’m not so sure about Obamacare; it just always seems to come up whenever anyone criticizes the president, Democrats and liberals.

Anyway, I guess I just have one question here.

Gun violence existed long before videogames and well before movies and television as well; how can they be the cause of something that existed before they did?

First, Kill All The Crazy People

Okay, it isn’t videogames and movies that cause gun violence; it’s mentally ill people that cause gun violence. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School wasn’t about guns, it was about crazy.

Yes, mental health is an underserved issue in America but I think the point being missed here is access.

We cannot make assault weapons selectively inaccessible. We cannot predict a psychotic break. Are we sure all those armed guards the NRA would have us install in our schools are sane and will remain so for the duration of their employment? We cannot rely on the ability of individual gun owners to secure assault weapons against theft as we learned to terrible effect in the Sandy Hook killings. The only certain way to prevent mentally ill people from obtaining assault rifles is if we make them inaccessible to all.

Or we could kill all the crazy people.

Common Sense Isn’t So Common

As noted above, my reading of the 2^nd Amendment does not guarantee individual gun rights in all circumstances; however, there is a legal and cultural reality that must be acknowledged. Guns have been an integral part of our history and remain essential elements in our culture today whether for sportsmen or for self-defense. Most gun owners seem to agree on universal background checks and waiting periods to obtain guns and acknowledge that an assault rifle with an extended clip isn’t their weapon of choice for hunting.

So what’s the problem?

The final argument seems to be that there’s really nothing we can do. People shrug and say criminals and crazy people will get guns no matter what we do. If they can’t get guns they will use baseball bats and knives. Why bother?

Those on the political right, when arguing that we must do something – no matter that it will be difficult – about the federal debt will often give this reason: We have to do it for our children.

The argument that the now expired ban on assault weapons was ineffective shouldn’t be an argument for doing nothing. It should be an argument for making the next ban effective.

We have to do it. For our children.