Taking Aim at a Solution

Gun control is a controversial argument starter.  Many Americans have guns that have never misbehaved and therefore see no need to discipline those inanimate objects with great restrictions on their rights of association.  Such gun owners rightly perceive that “gun control” legislation is really “gun owner control”.

So, let’s start with both the owners and non-owners admitting to this simple truth – Gun do not need to be controlled; it is the users of guns that are the targets of our concern.

There exist many laws about what an individual is not permitted to do with a gun.  One may not assault or kill people.  One may not intimidate to rob or coerce people.  One may not damage public or other persons’ property.  But with a gun, one can do any of these activities.  The existence of these laws is to define a prohibition and the consequence (penalty) for breaching that prohibition.  The deterrent impact in knowing that some action is illegal does not always prevent the criminal act from being committed.  In our shared experience indeed, there are nearly 300,000 instances each year of guns being used in US to commit these violent forbidden acts.  There are likely more crimes than these recorded murders, assaults, and robberies, but within these reported crimes, one in thirty criminal uses of a gun apparently results in a homicide.

As numerous crime dramas have taught us, crime happens because of motive, means, and opportunity.  Laws prohibiting the various uses of guns work to counter-balance the motives of the criminal (with the perception of penalty to offset (illegal) gain) with a minor effect on the choice of means (i.e. if it was legal to poison a person but not to shoot him, some murderers might change their weapon (although perhaps not a mugger)).  “Gun owner control laws” seek to diminish the opportunity for criminals to commit their intended offenses.  The ease with which an available loaded gun may be employed to commit criminal acts (versus, say, bare knuckles as the weapon) is a great equalizer of the opportunity for more people to do so if so motivated.

Some people argue that it is the imbalance between the armed and unarmed citizens which is the real source of the problems of gun violence in our society.  That is, if all persons were armed with the easily used weapons of death and destruction, the advantage for the potential assailant would be decreased.  My early childhood education in cinematic Westerns suggests that the trained gunslinger might still outdraw the farmer (and the body-armored, semi-automatic armed bank robbers might feel sufficiently confident against a lobby of bank customers with pocket derringers).  Such gun owner rules requiring more people to carry guns do not seek to lower opportunity, but offer the prospect of increasing the counter-balance to motive in the face of ubiquitous defense and reprisal amongst the potential victims.  With the increase in mutual annihilation at the scene of crimes, we might indeed see a decrease in costly judicial proceedings (and corrections housing and supervision) against the deceased criminals not persuaded by this increased risk.

But perhaps lost in the solutions of the escalation of gun ownership as a deterrent on criminal motivation is the fact that 55% of gun deaths in the US are suicides (and another 5% are unmotivated accidents).  There are few, if any, documented instances of a suicidal assailant being deterred by his victim also being armed.  Perhaps, as a society, we believe that the suicide victim “was asking for it” and so deserves his/her fate (and that self-inflicted gunshots are a quicker and more certain means compared to more resuscitatable methods that might be used).  In the absence of guns, we might reason, those are 12,000-16,000 lost souls amongst us who would find those other means to their ends.

So, perhaps our problem is only that 3 Americans out of every 100,000 are murdered by guns each year (and 30 times that number are assaulted and/or robbed), and not the 4 Americans who die by their own action or by accident.  Motor vehicles kill over four times that many (usually accidentally), we are told, and there is no clamor to restrict their ownership.  Heart disease kills 60 times as many and yet there is no campaign to remove these killers from everyone’s chest.

But, before we rush to arm our toddlers, perhaps we should consider what the other options are to gun owner control: (2) lower the availability of guns, or (3) do nothing (i.e. learn to live with the problem at its current “minor” effects amongst the myriad of other risks we survive (or not) each day).  While the latter option is the most likely outcome of the prolonged debates which will be occurring, let’s examine the reduction of availability strategy.

How may guns be made less available (or useful)?  To whom should guns be less available?

Underlying those questions is the fundamental assumption that “guns should be available (if limited perhaps).”  While it may not be unique in its legal policies around gun (weapon) ownership, the Constitution of the United States of America defines an undeniable right of its citizens to keep and bear arms.  The one explicitly stated purpose for citizens to be armed is “the security of a free state.”  While the amendment suggests that a well-regulated militia is necessary to achieve this purpose, it is understood that the manning of a militia (in the framework of the society of the Founders) was from the individual private citizen drawn into service as needed.  Such a citizen would return to his business when the need passed.

As a matter of history, the original version proposed for the Second Amendment contained a phrase suggesting it was the expectation that every citizen would be armed and ready to serve in the militia unless a “religiously scrupulous” person objected to rendering “military service in person.”  That clause was stricken from the draft submitted for ratification, leaving the restriction upon the Government not to be allowed to infringe (reduce) the rights to arms.  The Government was not prevented from raising the requirement of gun ownership (as the NRA and others may today be proposing).  Indeed, only a few months after the ratification of the 2^nd Amendment, the US Congress enacted a law that required every white male between 18 and 45 to enroll in the militia and bring his own musket, flintlock, or rifle and ammunition.

Thus, growing out of a culture of self-reliance, parochial organization, and even a bit of sanctioned rebellion, we have been placed in our current position by the thinking of our 18^th century Founders.  They allowed the possibility that the nation and society may change and thus need new structure and rules.  One method was in the forceful resistance of its citizens to the tyranny of its government.  But the other was in the peaceful and deliberative process of enacting and amending these rules.

Ask yourself – if the Second Amendment was proposed today, would it be ratified?

If you believe the answer is No, then the clear action required is to Repeal the Second Amendment.  Or amend it to 21^st century standards of technology, society, and culture.

What does the necessity of a militia to maintain security mean in our day?  We now do have fulltime professional armies and police forces doing the duties 24/7 that the old militias were called upon in such emergencies to perform.  The standing forces maintain sufficient arms in their controlled arsenals to equip any volunteer or draftee called into auxiliary service.  The citizen does not need to park a tank (or jet fighter) in his driveway to assist in the national defense.  He does not need a semi-automatic to help direct traffic at a rock concert.  The militias (and their private arms) that might be required are those to oppose government, not to assist it.  Do we as a nation still believe in the rights of private militias like the KKK, Hell’s Angels, and deep-woods survivalists to prepare to fight locally against oppression by our enacted laws?  The Constitution/2^nd Amendment, as is, seemingly states that such “gun clubs” are a necessity for our freedom – does the vast majority of us believe that now?

Or should the 2^nd Amendment be amended to state the more restricted and modern purpose for keeping household weapons?  Recreation – sports, hunting, and collector’s hobbies.  Law enforcement and military defense is no longer the province of the private citizen – those are the regulated and controlled business of governments, local, state, and national.  Perhaps, under the revised 2^nd Amendment, anyone may own a gun, but it may only be carried outside the home (or designated shooting and hunting establishments/locales) when unloaded and/or disabled from use without special government license and permission.  Carrying a concealed weapon (without regulated permission) is always an offense as is carrying a loaded or enabled firearm.  Those with criminal intent may be no less motivated than before, but their opportunity to get weapons to the scene of their crimes will be limited by the vigilance of those around them.  We do not need to wait to see if the person carrying an AK-47 actually shoots before the police can intervene to ensure there is no ability to fire the weapon.

But, if you believe the answer is Yes, the 2^nd Amendment would be ratified today, then let’s give it an in-depth reading to understand what the 21^st century voter has approved.

“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.”

We acknowledge and uphold the right to arms in the context of “well-regulated militia being necessary”.  In the 21^st century, we do not understand “regulated” to mean “drilled to march in regular columns.”  To us, regulations are rules and laws and a well-regulated industry has such guidelines and restrictions on operations from top to bottom.  The Constitution, Article I Section 8 ascribed the regulation of militia to State authorities within the disciplines provided by Congress.  A modern vote to ratify this amendment means the individual private citizen has the non-infringeable right to arms if he/she operates within the regulations of the State militia.  There is not a restriction on the Government to control gun ownership outside of the citizen’s participation and adherence to the regulation of the State militia.  There is no granted power to form, recruit, and train private militias in the Constitution, no matter how well-regulated.  If you think that there should be – Amend the Second Amendment.   Drop the introductory phrase to allow citizens to have any weapons they want for any purpose.  Or add language changing Article I to permit extra-governmental militia to be formed.  But, until the Amendment is modified, acknowledge the responsibility of the State governments to impose regulations (within the context of militia membership rules) on who may own (and register) what and how they may keep, carry, and use firearms.  Enroll in your local State militia and pledge to abide by their regulations.

So, let’s put it to a good, old-fashioned American vote.  Let’s propose two amendments – one to reaffirm the Second Amendment as written by our Founders and another to repeal it (and perhaps replace it with a more modern understanding of what American society wants in its nation and neighborhoods).  Either outcome might give us the ammunition to solve this problem.