Essay: Gun Control and the Right to Bear Arms

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Gun Control and the Right to Bear Arms

In his 2001 "Memorandum for United States Attorneys from the Attorney General, Re: United States v. Emerson," Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote that the constitutional right to bear arms allowed for "reasonable restrictions" designed "to prevent unfit persons from possessing firearms or to restrict possession of firearms particularly suited to criminal misuse." This framework, set forth by a conservative appointee in a Republican administration, provides the kind of practical point of view that a majority of Americans can, and do, easily endorse. Gun control is not an issue of abolishing Americans' rights to own guns, it is a way to apply foresight and intelligence via those "reasonable restrictions" to keep our society as safe from gun violence as possible, while allowing constitutional freedoms to stand inviolate.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "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." Much debate revolves around the issue of whether the right to bear arms is solely assigned to militias, free citizens available to be called upon to defend the country against foreign attack when required, or whether the right of the people to bear arms stands as the key element of the Second Amendment. Reading the amendment in its entirety, the context of "the right to bear arms" clearly seems to be dependent on the condition of a well regulated, armed militia. The founding fathers opposed a standing army in times of peace, and they even complained of King George III's colonial army in the Declaration of Independence. They envisioned state militias made up of trained, able-bodied adult men, who would provide a common defense for the nation.

These are not the early, heady days of American independence. The United States now has both a standing army of a half million soldiers and a state-regulated National Guard to provide for the nation's defense, and the very relevance of the Second Amendment might be questioned. The flaw in this reasoning is the reliance on the literal interpretation of the words. As a nation, we have chosen not to have an evolving Constitution to keep pace with an evolving society. Instead, our courts rely on analogous interpretations of the law to apply 18th century concepts to the situations of modern life. In fact, any citing of precedence in a court case relies on analogy to validate a court's decision. Consider the case of Brown v. Board of Education from the early 1950s. In Topeka, Kansas, African-American third-grader Linda Brown walked one mile through a railroad switchyard to her segregated elementary school, prohibited from attending a closer school, which was available only to white students. A lawsuit brought by her father and the local NAACP went to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, and they found that the practice of segregation was detrimental to the African-American students, but that they would be bound by the analogous case of Plessy v. Ferguson from 1892, that had used the equal protection wording of the Fourteenth Amendment as a basis for the finding that segregation was allowable in instances where the facilities were separate but equal. The Fourteenth Amendment includes the text, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The case moved to the Supreme Court, and in 1954, the Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine for public education, requiring the desegregation of schools across America. Brown v. Board of Education shows us both an example of the application of constitutional rights applied by analogy and the ability of the courts to evolve their interpretations with the evolution of the society.

In the case of the Second Amendment, our forefathers' need to have an armed militia might be reinterpreted as being analogous to our need for an armed segment of the citizenry that would be available as a deterrent against the misuses of power and tyranny in the modern world, and some do indeed consider it part of the checks and balances system that regulates power and authority in the United States. Furthermore, although it is clearly a low probability eventuality, citizens of today, like their early American counterparts, might someday be called upon to resist foreign invasion, as was depicted in director John Milius' 1984 film, Red Dawn, wherein high school students fought a guerilla war against Russian and Cuban invaders. Let us grant that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, but consider this: constitutional rights have never been absolute. While we protect the freedom of the press, libel laws prevent newspapers from printing lies about a person. We advocate free speech, but laws forbid someone from yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The freedom to assemble may be regulated by permits and by the assignation of a locale in which a demonstration is allowed. The principle that overrides our constitutionally-provided freedoms is simply a consideration that without regulation, harm may occur. Knowing this, we can put the Second Amendment issue to rest in any discussion of gun control. The case exists for the rights of Americans to own firearms, but constitutional rights are not absolute. Therefore, we must agree with former Attorney General Ashcroft who found that there was no case for unrestricted gun ownership and unlimited access to guns. As a nation, we protect ourselves by applying rules and restrictions to gun ownership in order to keep them out of the hands of those that may do harm, including the mentally ill, the violence-prone, or those with a history of felony crime.

Those opposing gun control are against a ban on assault weapons, waiting periods between gun purchase and acquisition, background checks at gun shows, mandatory child safety locks, and for those taking the extreme position, anything that interferes with access to guns or identifies those who have guns. In order to further this agenda, a lobby, spearheaded by the National Rifle Association (NRA), distributes millions of dollars each year as contributions to individual candidates, Political Action Committees (PACs), political parties, and so-called soft money contributions. In fact, from 1990 to 2002, they spent nearly $17 million dollars on these contributions.

Assault weapons were banned in 1994, but the ban lapsed in 2004 without action by our leaders. These semiautomatic pistols and rifles, capable of firing large numbers of rounds very quickly, are not accurate for hunting or target sport. They have been used in some of the worst mass murders ever committed in the United States, including the 1984 shooting that killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California, the 1989 attack on an elementary school in Stockton, California that left five children dead and twenty-nine wounded, the 1993 CIA headquarters shooting that killed two CIA employees and wounded three others, and the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, where twelve were murdered, twenty-four were wounded, and two committed suicide. The harm caused by assault weapons is undisputable. A ban on the manufacture of these weapons will maintain the number in circulation, and registration and tracking of existing weapons will help to keep them out of the hands of criminals.

The Brady Law, implemented in 1994, had a provision for a five-day waiting period between the purchase and acquisition of a firearm. Prior to this federal law, the states controlled the waiting period. The purpose of the waiting period is twofold. The first relates to documentation, the seller must accomplish a background check and confirm the identity of the purchaser. The second relates to emotion, allowing a cooling-off period to prevent gun violence as a result of rage, jealousy, revenge, or despair. With the implementation of a national "instant check" system in 1998, the mandatory federal five day waiting period expired. The states still have the ability to legislate waiting periods, yet only eighteen have done so. Verifying the identity and background of the purchaser and preventing a purchase made in the height of emotion should be foremost among the ways that we protect ourselves and our loved ones from the harm of gun violence caused by emotionally disturbed persons or those with criminal records.

Dealers describing themselves as private collectors can sell guns without background checks at gun shows and flea markets, using a loophole to evade the Brady Law that requires only federally licensed gun dealers to conduct a background check before selling a firearm. Background checks keep guns out of known dangerous hands, and it is unconscionable that any group could oppose closing the loophole, yet the NRA does. Imagine that anyone can walk into a gun show and walk out with a deadly weapon regardless of their background or intention.

Child safety locks are keyed or combination locks that fill a firearm's trigger guard and prevent the trigger from being pulled accidentally. The number of accidental shooting deaths each year is statistically a small number, around 1,500 in total, and a little over 200 of these are children. Yet, the individual tragedy is immense, and the cost of child safety locks is minimal. The gun lobby opposes mandatory child safety locks, but parents, given a safe and easy option, would surely use them if they were received with their gun purchase. Reducing or eliminating the tragic loss of life due to accidental firearm discharge is a goal that all of society should support.

Gun control protects the citizen on the street, the teenager in the school, the worker in the office, the woman in the shelter, and the inquisitive child in the home. The majority of the American people support reasonable gun control laws and view them as an important tool in reducing the level of gun violence in this country. We must move political opinion away from the undue influence of the gun lobby, whose voices are louder than their numbers merit. We must become better educated about the issues, especially the false distraction that we cannot regulate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and we must give gun control a higher priority in our personal and political considerations. Our legislators must know that the majority favors more, not less, gun control to make the United States safer from the terror of gun violence.

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