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Controlling Gun Violence

Copyright © 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010-2013 by David E. Ross

The Constitution

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.

2nd Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

Words were not wasted in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. There are no extraneous sentences or phrases. Thus, A well regulated Militia is a very significant part of the 2nd Amendment. This is not about each individual person maintaining his or her own arsenal; this is about the individual states maintaining militias. Further, the phrase being necessary to the security of a free State clearly refers to the states having militias, not to private militias.

Clearly, the control of private ownership of guns is not prohibited. As my daughter noted, the 2nd Amendment actually endorses state laws regulating the ownership of weapons (through the regulation of militias) and prohibits the federal government from eliminating state militias or interfering with state gun-control laws.

Some argue that the 2nd Amendment applies to individuals associating with their friends and neighbors to create an informal, ad hoc defense force. Read the amendment again! It says A well regulated Militia…, an obvious reference to a militia organized under government sponsorship and control. It also cites …the security of a free State…, without mentioning the security of a free people. The proper role of the people under this amendment is to enlist in the state's militia and serve under the state's regulations for that militia, including howsoever the state chooses to regulate the firearms used by the militia.

Those early statesmen who wrote our Constitution and its first ten amendments — the Bill of Rights — were very careful to distinguish between people — the citizenry who organized to form a government — and the state — the collective expression of that government. Knowing they were writing the rules by which we govern ourselves, they also avoided any hidden meanings. Thus, militia has its conventional dictionary meaning.

My interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is consistent with the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court extending over more than a century. Repeatedly (1943, 1980), the Court refers to the "well regulated militia". The Court also refused (1996) to hear an appeal against a lower court that ruled the 2nd Amendment is a right held by states, not by private citizens. In any case, the Court ruled (1886, 1894) that the 2nd Amendment affects only the federal government and does not put any restriction on state gun-control laws; more recently (1983), the Court refused to hear an appeal against a lower court that made the same ruling.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 in Silveira vs Lockyer that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to individuals. Asserting that the intent of the 2nd Amendment was to protect gun rights of militias, not individuals, the Court of Appeals upheld California's laws against assault weapons, stating:

Slogans

The most visible, vocal political force in favor of arming every United States resident is the National Rifle Association (NRA). Not only does the NRA actively lobby against gun control in both Congress and the state legislatures, but it also contributes money and workers to the political campaigns of its "friends".

Further, the NRA engages in an ongoing public relations campaign in favor of gun ownership. This campaign makes extensive use of some very catchy slogans. Let's analyze some of those slogans.

• When owning a gun becomes a criminal offense, only criminals will own guns.

  This advances the false assertion that all gun ownership will be made illegal. No such laws are under consideration at either the national or state levels.

  This slogan also appeals to a public fear of crime (which some politicians still promote in this era of declining criminal activity). However, remember that the youngsters who shot their classmates in Jonesboro had no prior criminal records. Daily, people are shot by family members, temporarily enraged and without any prior criminal records. In any case, firearms in private homes are the primary source of the stolen weapons used by criminals; that is, by allowing almost unrestrained ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens, we have armed our criminals.

• Knives are also used as murder weapons. If we control guns, we should also control knives. (Sometimes poison, automobiles, or other objects are named.)

  The only purpose of a gun is to propel a metal slug for the purpose of damaging a target. (Too often, the target is another person.) Knives are used to prepare food, carve duck decoys, and remove tumors. As a weapon, a knife is a one-on-one object that generally requires very close proximity between the killer and the victim. How many of the 13 killed at Columbine High School would still be alive if the two rampaging students were armed with knives instead of guns? A potential victim might outrun an assailant with a knife; no one outruns a bullet.

  The other objects named in this slogan have general uses that are beneficial. The only beneficial use of a gun is self-defense — against a criminal who obtained his own gun (possibly legally) through the proliferation of weapons in our society.

  The basic fallacy of this knives argument is illustrated in the following news story.

  Police: Student slashes 8 at Indiana school

  VALPARAISO, Indiana — A student slashed eight schoolmates with a knife Wednesday at Valparaiso High School, inflicting severe cuts, authorities said. The student who committed the attack before class was in custody and the school, about 20 miles southeast of Gary, had been placed on lockdown, Valparaiso police spokesman Michael Grennes said. He said the attack happened about 8 a.m. in a Spanish classroom.

  Jeni Bell, a spokeswoman for Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, said the students suffered severe cuts and one suffered a hip injury. But Grennes said the injuries weren't life-threatening.

  "At this time, we've got a number of students who have been injured," Grennes said. "They've all been transported to the hospital and all the parents have been notified." Grennes declined to release additional details about the attack, including a possible motive, pending a news conference later Wednesday. School employees said no one was immediately available to comment.

  Source: Associated Press, 24 November 2004
  Emphasis in bold added.

  If the student in this story had a gun instead of a knife, how many more students would be injured? How many would be dead?

• Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

  Guns are the weapon of choice because they are so efficient. Look at how many died in Jonesboro and Littleton at the hands of so few killers carrying just a few weapons.

  Guns do indeed kill people. We frequently read about deaths caused by a mishandled or dropped gun. The mere presence of a gun leads to murder when, in a moment of anger, someone kills a family member. If the gun had not been readily available, the intended victim might have avoided injury long enough for the killer to calm down. The slogan must be revised:

  Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.

Solutions

There is no magic bullet that can stop this problem. However, there are some laws that could reduce gun-related violence effectively if collectively implemented.

• We already have laws that recognize children are too immature to drink alcohol, sign contracts, or vote. Whether death is caused by a teenage gang member in a drive-by shooting or a small child playing with a gun he thought was a toy, we must decide that children and guns do not mix. We need laws that prohibit giving or selling firearms to children. The mere possession of a gun by a child should be illegal. Further, those adults whose guns are used by children to injure or kill others should be subject to both criminal and civil liability. This liability should even apply to those who carelessly allow children to find guns in their homes, discoveries that too often end in tragedy. No, this prohibition should not prevent a parent from supervising a child's target practice or hunting; but the parent must be required to be physically present whenever his or her child uses firearms. And the parent must be held accountable when those firearms are misused. (However, a person is an adult at age 18. Unless we repeal the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, raising the age for gun ownership to 21 discriminates against a class of adults without any valid justification.)
• In Littleton, police aggressively pursued leads to individuals who supplied the guns used by the two killers. Those who aid murderers must indeed be held accountable. However, tracing the chain of ownership of a gun is not always easy. We can trace the chain of ownership of real estate and automobiles because of extensive records. Every sale of a house is recorded. Every automobile is registered. The states must also register every firearm and record every transaction — importation, manufacture, sale, gift, trade — involving a gun. The last registered owner of a gun (if theft or disappearance are not promptly reported) could then be held accountable for its use and misuse. This would create a strong incentive for the prompt reporting of lost or stolen weapons. Of course, those individuals who seem to file frequent and excessive reports about lost weapons should be investigated regarding whether they are illegally supplying guns to those who the law prohibits from owning guns.
• Unless you are hunting hamburger, an automatic, continuous-firing weapon is useless for hunting. Such a gun (often called an assault weapon) cannot be used for target practice; it so shreds the target that you cannot judge the accuracy of your aim. And existing laws severely restrict the use of an automatic weapon in self-defense: The force used to stop an assailant must not exceed the minimum necessary to end the assault. That is, deadly force is limited to cases where the assailant is using deadly force; an assault weapon is appropriate only when the assailant is also using an assault weapon.

  All automatic, continuous-firing guns and rifles must be prohibited. It should be illegal to manufacture, import, transport, sell, buy, trade, or possess such weapons except through special licenses that apply only to supplying the military and police. Any semi-automatic, rapid-firing weapon whose design is based on an automatic weapon or that can be readily converted into an automatic weapon should also be prohibited. And the laws enacted for these prohibitions must not be so narrowly worded (as are the current laws) that a superficial change in a gun's cosmetic appearance — or merely a change in the name of a gun — removes it from the law's scope.

• Guns are quite durable. A well-built gun properly maintained can be serviceable for more than a century. Merely restricting further distribution of guns will not end the carnage. The key consumable in dealing with guns — the non-durable whose absence could significantly reduce shooting deaths — is ammunition. Supplying ammunition to someone who does not legally own a firearm should be a crime. The manufacture, distribution, and sale of ammunition should be controlled no less than commerce in guns themselves. This applies not only to finished bullets and shotgun shells but also to gunpowder, casings, and detonators; after all, today many hobbyists reload spent shells.
• Some guns are so poorly designed or manufactured that they are more dangerous to persons handling them than to targets. Trigger safeties unlatch too easily. A dropped gun can kill a clumsy handler. Some guns are made such that effective trigger lock cannot be fitted. Accepting the reality that the purpose of a gun is to damage a target, the Consumer Product Safety Commission should have jurisdiction over gun hazards to non-targets. Those who champion gun-ownership should endorse regulations that would enhance the safety of their "toys".
• Homeowners put signs in their front yards proclaiming what guard service they use. Large Neighborhood Watch signs at the entrances to our communities warn would-be burglars. My car not only has an alarm but also, when the alarm is set, a blinking red light to warn car thieves. Why then would anyone concerned about his or her safety carry a concealed weapon? Would it not be better to carry a gun openly? Political pressure in various communities and states to relax restrictions on carrying concealed weapons is wrong and must be resisted by our elected officials. Otherwise, we will have more deaths caused by non-criminals who suddenly lose their tempers; and we will have greater opportunities for criminals to steal weapons.

_______________________
magic bullet: Yes, this is a sick pun; but I could not resist.

The NRA's Agenda

Actually the NRA has much broader goals than merely arming every man, woman, and child in the United States. Just before he became president of the NRA, Charlton Heston gave a speech in 1997 at a meeting of the Free Congress Foundation:

I've realized that guns are not the only issue. There is cultural war. … [Our allies are] Pentecostal Christians, or pro-lifers, or right-to-workers, or Promise Keepers, or school voucher-ers. … Why is 'Hispanic pride' or 'black pride' a good thing while 'white pride' conjures up shaved heads and white hoods?

Is there now room in the NRA for someone whose religion is not the one, true belief? That organization is now run by someone who seeks the support of those who would shoot doctors for the sake of "the right to life", who oppose the ability of labor unions to curb employer abuses, who would use religion to put half the population into a second-class status, and who would take my taxes to subsidize religious education for beliefs quite different from my own. Most frightening, Heston failed to understand that "white pride" is indeed the slogan of the white Christian nationalist movement, a terrorist movement of private militias that the NRA has helped to arm.

Former KKK Wizard David Duke clearly understands Heston's "cultural war". He praised Heston's speech: "I am thankful to hear a man with such high esteem say essentially the same things for which I have been reviled."

Heston finally had to resign as NRA president because of his affliction with Alzheimer's disease. That did not necessarily end the NRA's culture war.

Speculation that the NRA is really a lobbying front for gun manufacturers appears true. After all, why would the NRA opposed a United Nations proposed treaty that would restrict the export of guns without having any impact on domestic commerce or ownership of guns? This is because the treaty would harm the NRA's real sponsors, the gun manufacturers in the U.S. who account for 40% of the international trade in civilian guns.

We must recognize that we can be safe from gun violence only when we elect politicians who are not afraid of the NRA.

This was another reason I voted for Kerry.

By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McDonald vs City of Chicago that gun ownership is an individual right. The conservative majority of the justices — who long supported the concept of "original intent" in the Constitution — totally ignored the introductory clause of the 2nd Amendment. They thus proved that the term "activist judges" really apply only to liberals and not to conservatives who engage in "judicial legislation".

Someday, perhaps within my lifetime, a new set of Supreme Court justices will recognize that all words in the Constitution are relevant and will reinstate the introductory clause of the 2nd Amendment, making it apply to state militias. In the meantime, how many innocent individuals will die in gun violence in the United States?

Obviously in 2012, the answer to the above question was seen in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in a shopping mall just outside of Portland, Oregon, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and elsewhere. One week after 27 innocent people died in Newtown — mostly young children — Wayne LaPierre (chief executive of the NRA) said that prevention of future school shootings requires the immediate deployment of armed guards at every school in the United States. Given the dire financial state of most public school systems in this nation, I hope this suggestion includes having the NRA pay the costs for these guards. The NRA should also pay the costs of the schools' insurance policies to cover the added liability when armed guards accidentally shoot the wrong person. And will the NRA not also provide armed guards in movie theaters and shopping malls?

Does the answer to gun violence really require even more guns?

Contrary to the advice of the NRA's LaPierre, an armed police officer based at Price Middle School in Atlanta, Georgia, did not prevent a student from shooting another student at that school on 31 January 2013.

Last updated 1 February 2013

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