Guns in America. More Mass Shootings and Calls for Gun Control. Part 1

​Mass shootings have unfortunately been much in the news lately, followed by a clamor on the political left to enact new gun control legislation. The month of March alone saw 47 mass shooting events, involving four or more victims. Two of the most heinous of these shootings involved a lone gunman who killed ten people at a grocery store in Colorado, and the other involved a lone gunman who killed eight people at massage parlors in suburban Atlanta. During the first three months of 2021, the country has experienced 123 mass shootings, leaving 144 dead, and over 375 wounded https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/. These grim statistics prompted me to write a multipart blog series on “Guns in America”. This first blog will be a review of the constitutionality of guns, followed by an examination of the NRA, common sense gun control, and other topics surrounding this hot button issue. 

​I am not a gun owner. The only gun that I ever owned was a Daisy Winchester BB gun that I got for Christmas when I was 13. Fortunately, I never shot my eye out, and I had great fun target shooting in my backyard and “hunting” in the woods behind my house. I have no issue with the private ownership of certain types of guns. But the epidemic of gun violence and the easy access to military style assault weapons needs a thoughtful examination by the citizens of this country. Guns have been in America since the arrival of the first Europeans. The legal foundation for gun possession is imbedded in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, so let’s start there.

​Second Amendment: “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”. No other sentence in the Constitution has elicited more debate. Volumes have been written about the legality with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms. Since I am not a lawyer, it is not my intention to engage in legal arguments or to try and interpret the exact intent of the drafters of the Constitution. That is what the courts are for. Rather, I will highlight the major Supreme Court rulings which define the argument today. For those so inclined, you may find a good review on the Second Amendment at Cornell Law School’s website, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment. Another handy historical review and analysis of the Second Amendment is the 1982 Congressional Report “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms”,  https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/2ll/2ndschol/87senrpt.pdf.
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The two most important questions that legal scholars and law makers have grappled with over the decades regarding the Second Amendment are:

1. Do individuals, outside the context of a militia, have the right to keep and bear arms?
2. What powers do the States and the federal government have in regulating firearms?

These questions can be answered in two important Supreme Court cases which have taken place in recent years. 

​District of Columbia v. Heller (2008): This case overturned Washington D.C.’s prohibition on handguns. But the justifications for this decision are what is important. The majority of the court ruled that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to possess firearms for lawful purposes, and not in the context of militia service. The court also stated that the right to bear arms is subject to regulations, such as prohibitions on concealed weapons, limits on the rights of felons and the mentally ill, and laws forbidding the carrying of weapons in certain locations. Laws imposing conditions on commercial sales, and prohibitions on the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons are also permissible.
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Washington D.C. is a federal entity, and the Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. This issue was clarified two years later in another Supreme Court case.

McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010): This case struck down a handgun ban at the state level. The court concluded that Second Amendment rights not only applied to protections against federal law, but also to states and municipalities. This decision was based on the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement of the same right that is protected by federal law.  
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A lot has changed in the United States since the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791. The traditional concept of a civilian based militia no longer exists, and state-based militia organizations have been incorporated into the federal military structure. You can find more information on the history of militias in the United States in one of my previous bog posts,  https://armchairamerican.com/blog/militias-in-america.

Our nation’s military establishment is vast and the most powerful in the world. Most Americans don’t fear our armed forces, and it is laughable to think that an armed populace could defeat such a force. Unlike the firearms possessed in the homes of early Americans, civilians no longer use their household weapons for military duty. Modern Americans still keep and bear arms, but not to protect themselves from a despotic government, but to defend against common criminals, as well as for recreational pursuits. 
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The real danger to our way of life is if we become complacent and numb to the violence and killing, and chalk it up to the cost of individual freedoms.  We can and must do better to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm to others. Short of amending the Constitution, guns are here to stay. Fortunately, even the most conservative courts acknowledge that gun regulation does not violate the Second Amendment. In future posts I will examine sensible gun control laws and other issues related to guns in America.

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Thanks,
Armchair American