Editor’s note: The following is a response to a Letter to the Editor titled “Pleading the Second” from the Feb. 14 issue.
To Mr. Steve Jones, your arguments about gun control and the second amendment are compelling. However, your assertions about what the second amendment provides for in terms of the right to keep and bear military weapons is not specifically stated in the second amendment. You stated the second amendment gives citizens the right to keep and bear “military weapons” and this is restriction on the government and not on citizens.
Let’s look at the second amendment. Here it is as written in the U.S. 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.”
Notice that the words “a well regulated militia” are written in the amendment, and while the amendment gives “people” the right to keep and bear arms, it also infers the need to regulate “militias.” That is a point that is rarely discussed, and it has meaning in regards to who should have weapons and under what circumstances.
Let’s also consider the context in which the second amendment came into being. In 1791, when the amendment was ratified, the country was still emerging from the revolutionary war. The founding fathers wanted to ensure that the British or other potential oppressors would not invade and conquer the U.S. The way that the Continental Army won the war was by ensuring that citizens were armed against the British. These were the militias that are referred to in the second amendment. As you mentioned, the British and the U.S. Army used military weapons, but they were muskets and cannons, not machine guns or rapid fire weapons, assault weapons.
Fast forward to today. The U.S. is a stable democracy. The military now has nuclear weapons. Therefore, does the second amendment extend the rights of citizens to bear “military weapons” such as nuclear bombs? Do we really face the threat of the U.S. government oppressing the U.S. citizenry in the same manner as the British did in the 1700s?
Let’s now examine some more important facts.
The United States owns more guns per resident, at about 0.89 (280 million guns), than any other nation in the world. That’s nearly double Serbia and Yemen, at about 0.55, and triple European countries like France and Germany. Japan’s gun ownership rate is near to 0.
And corresponding gun deaths per 100,000 population: U.S., 9 (28,000 per year); France, 5; and Japan, 1.
Here is an example of how gun control, in the face of a national tragedy, worked in Australia.
The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. Thirty-five people were killed and 21 wounded when a man with a history of violent and erratic behavior opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two military style semi-automatic rifles. This mass killing horrified the Australian public and had powerful political consequences.
The Port Arthur perpetrator said he bought his firearms from a gun dealer without holding the required firearms license.
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard immediately took gun law proposals and forced the states to adopt them under a National Firearms Agreement. These gun regulations were effective in reducing senseless gun related deaths (1 per 100,000).
When are we going to realize that times have changed from the era when the second amendment was written? When will we realize that the rights of the general public trump the rights of a minority of citizens to bear military style weapons and that these types of changes will not threaten our freedoms?
I am all for gun ownership and honoring our second amendment rights. Hunters and target shooters should retain the right to own guns that allow them to pursue their hobbies and for self protection with reasonable limits on the types of weapons and magazine capacities. All gun owners should have rigorous background checks and they should have to demonstrate why they are qualified to own a gun.
Let’s make our society as peaceful as possible by taking practical measures to ensure that the second amendment is preserved in a practical way and in modern terms so that innocent people no longer die to protect a perceived right that is harming the fabric of our country.
Matt Borenzweig