 Congressional leaders are patting themselves on the back for passing a bipartisan bill on new gun regulations. But even before the President signed the bill into law, the Supreme Court overruled a New York law which will make it easier for Americans to own and carry a gun in public. The Republicans view the epidemic of gun violence as a mental illness problem, not as a gun problem. The Democrats’ hopes for meaningful gun reform have been vanquished for the foreseeable future by the Supreme Court’s rigid interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Let’s take a look at recent developments.
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: (https://www.murphy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/bipartisan_safer_communities_act_one_pager.pdf) This bill was signed into law by President Biden on June 25, 2022. Here are the highlights of the new law:
The compromise bill (it is actually more of a capitulation) is seen as a victory by the Democrats who have been working for decades on gun safety legislation. I see the new law as another failure of the Congress to enact meaningful gun reforms. It is little more than a tiny band-aid on a gaping wound that won’t be healed until the 2nd Amendment is repealed or replaced.  Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Gun Law: On June 23, 2022 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf. The Court’s decision overrules a New York law that required adults seeking a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public to demonstrate a need to do so. The Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment provides a broad right of the individual to arm themselves in public, and New York (or any other state) cannot place restrictions on that right. According to the Court’s majority opinion, written by Clarence Thomas, the 2nd Amendment protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” He went on to write that “The government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations.” This decision has ramifications throughout the country, and will bring legal challenges to any current or future gun control measures enacted by the states. The direction of the Supreme Court on gun regulations is now clear. The 2nd Amendment right of the individual to own and bear arms is chiseled in stone, and states have limited authority to restrict that right.  America’s Gun Problem: As much as the Republican Party would like you to believe, the mental health system cannot stop mass shootings in America. Only a small fraction of mass shootings are conducted by people with mental illness. It is very difficult to determine who will commit gun violence, and to focus too much on mental health is a mistake. There are volumes of good research on gun violence conducted by the Rand Corporation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and many others, if you care to look. David Brooks wrote an interesting article recently, titled “Why Mass Shooters Do the Evil They Do”. I found it very interesting, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/opinion/mass-shooters-motive.html.  The only thing that connects all perpetrators of gun violence is access to guns, and America is awash in them. All of the guns used in the high-profile mass shootings this summer were purchased legally. The mental health system cannot solve this problem. If the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” is the best that Congress can deliver, we might as well add “gun violence” to the other certainties of American life, “death and taxes”. Don’t let your member of Congress use this new law as an excuse to rest on their laurels. Americans deserve to be safe when they go to school, walk down the street, shop at a grocery store, or attend a 4th of July parade.
Teenager Drinking BeerOne of these two activities is illegal. Which do you think poses the biggest threat to your family? If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
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 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. The two most important questions that legal scholars and law makers have grappled with over the decades regarding the Second Amendment are:
 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. 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. 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. 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.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
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