I've gone to college and grad school with a focus in public health and epidemiology, so it would be easy for me to take that angle when it comes to the gun rights argument. However, I think that's the wrong mentality. It's not about what the numbers say, whether they swing one way or another. What it comes down to is a personal right to defend oneself with the power of a lethal weapon. It is a selfish (minus the negative connotation to that word) decision that we are given the right to make in this country. In other countries, different laws may and do work better. In Sweden, there are far fewer guns - both legal and illegal - in circulation, so stricter gun laws only make sense. In the U.S., there are simply far too many unregistered/illegal guns around for the government to render law abiding citizens impotent by outlawing their firearms.
Times have changed, so I don't think the context in which the 2nd Amendment was written is still as applicable today as it was then. If the purpose is to enable a militia to arm themselves against a corrupt government, then every type of modern weapon should be legal to own. I think, in today's America, it more comes down to allowing us to make the personal choice for life protection, regardless of the possible consequences it may have on us or others which the statistics reflect.
"MassPackersFan" wrote:
Good post. +1 (even though I disagree š )
The bolded part is why I started my earlier post with the claim that we are under-armed. Yes, we have an incredible number of guns lying around. And, unfortunately, much of that dangerous shortage of wisdom Foster talks about lies in those holding those guns.
And yes, MassPackersFan is correct that today our public discussion is centered around the question of "personal choice for life protection." IMO that is exactly where we have gone wrong. That should *not* be the question.
Oh, to be sure, that Fox video on gun-free zones points out the flawed expectations of gun-control advocates when it comes to the protection issue. But that's merely a political debate, not a constitutional one. If you want that kind of gun control, you vote for politicians who will try to legislate it. If you don't want that kind of gun control, you vote for those politicians who will oppose such legislation. You write letters to the editors decrying legislation or lauding it. You run for political office and all the rest.
But the Second Amendment is not reducible to a political question. The Second Amendemnt is a constitutional question. And in particular, it is a Bill of Rights question. And I don't care what the Supremes have been forgetting since the Earl Warren days, Bill of Rights questions are supposed to be about protections against the state. NOT about protections against each other.
Now if people want to change what the Bill of Rights is about, if they want to make it about protection against each other, then they ought to go the route that Madison, et al, set forth: by amending the Constitution. If people think we need a right to bear arms against robbers and bandits that supersedes the criminal law, then they ought to amend the Constitution to say so. If people think we need to disarm ourselves to protect ourselves against accidents and terrorists and drug dealers, then they ought to amend the Constitution to do so.
If, and this is in the end where I disagree most fundamentally with you, MassPackersFan, if people think the context has changed from the days of Madison and company and the original reason for the Second Amendment doesn't apply, then it is *their* obligation to change the Consitution to reflect that changing context. And to change it in the way that the framers set forth, not by judicial or legislative or executive fiat. Not by appeal to vague platitudes about an "organic document," but by doing the hard work of playing by the rules of constitutional amendment.
Rules that were made difficult on purpose. Rules that were made difficult because the founders knew that politics, and its malleability due to the "needs" of changing "historical context" and the expediency of the moment, would make it too easy to reduce constitutional questions to mere politics.
IMO, as it stands right now, what the Constitution *does* say is that we are free to arm ourselves against the possibility of a corrupt state. And, yes, that means far more than a right to own a handgun or a hunting rifle.
Yes, the idea of automatic weapons or grenades or .50 caliber Rambo guns in the hands of some of my neighbors scares the crap out of me. But, and this is what legislatures (and those who elect them) and courts (and those who litigate in them) have forgotten: we don't get to ignore the Consitution just because its use in one way or another might scare the crap out of us.
The Constitution is either the supreme law of the land, or it binds us not at all. We don't get to have it both ways.
That's what "we, the people" have forgotten.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)