Gun Control, The Constitution, and Serial Killers. Sorry, no Cookies.

Recently, the gun control debate has been forced back into the living rooms of America by a media hungry to capitalize on the tragic, horrific events of the Virginia Tech shootings – interestingly enough, without a real story. Our Democratically-controlled congress has shirked the issue, stating that they’re not going to act rashly, out of fear, or in reaction to the event. Despite our government showing a great deal of uncharacteristic class and reason, the debate is here again: should America practice gun control in reaction to the events of this and other mass killings?

Origins of Liberty

Perhaps we should start, as most things do, at the beginning. Namely, the beginning of our country. More than 230 years ago, the stars lined up just right, and a room full of incredibly intelligent, well-education, highly neurotic individuals sat in a room and committed treason by signing a declaration of independence from their motherland, and shortly after, signed into law a constitution of this new nation, laying out its values, precedents, and unshakable rights. It’s funny that during this time, those people settled the gun control debate for good … perhaps we’ve been too busy talking about it to listen to what they had to say.

The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States of American reads now, as it did in 1789 when it and the other amendments in the Bill of Rights were penned by James Madison, as follows:

“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. “

It seems pretty straight-forward. However short and compact, this tiny sentence carries with it ages of wisdom learned from revolutions, great thinkers, great oppressors, and Enlightened values. The first of these concepts is that a civil militia is necessary to the security of a free State (but we’ll get to that later). The second, and most immediate to our discussion, is almost too plainly stated to require extra attention: The right of citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It’s important to notice the use of two verbs: to keep and to bear. But again, we’ll get to the importance of that language later.

The funny thing is that this concept, that is, freedom to have guns, wasn’t really all that revolutionary in its time. In 1689, the British Declaration of Rights was passed by parliament enabling all Protestants to “have arms for their defence [sic] suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” This is just one examples, but the point is this – during the time the Bill of Rights were established, the right to bear arms was considered “common law”, it was normal, and it was taken for granted. It is remarkable, then, that those men who cemented our rights on paper and in law had the foresight to guarantee that right to bear arms so that when faced with a dilemma such as gun control, we can turn to that great document for the answer.

The very plain, unsexy answer to the debate is that gun control is illegal, unconstitutional, and against everything America stood for when it was formed. In fact, when the American Revolution first began, one of the first things England attempted to do was take the colonists’ guns away – and this illustrates another point which shall be revisited later, that it is always in the interest of the State to have guns, and for the people not to have them. Notice, I didn’t say “free State”.

A shift in Values

The NRA, now known as the NHRA (National Handgun and Rifle Association) was founded in 1871 after the civil war – incidentally, it was founded in response to people just not knowing how to handle rifles, which resulted in poor performance on the battlefields. Thanks to the efforts of a gun-lover like Teddy Roosevelt, the NRA gained popularity and set about educating the people how to safely and effectively shoot a gun.

It wasn’t until the 1970’s when there was a great shift in values in America – we became, for lack of a better term, pragmatic about guns, rejecting James Madison’s view that the right to hold and bear arms is a very basic liberty, and we decided that we prefer to let the government control who can and cannot have guns. We allowed waiting periods, controls, and outright bans on guns because we believed it would make us more safe. In a way, it worked! According to the department of justice,The rates of theft and household burglary have steadily declined since the late 1970’s. In 1995 burglary was at about half the rate in 1973. Those are some pretty stunning statistics, and seem to indicate that gun control works.

And gun control certainly does work, but as my conclusion will show, it isn’t about pragmatism, it’s about rights and the Constitution.

Liberty or Safety? The Great Paradox of Our Time.

Thomas Jefferson, one of those enigmatic, dynamic gentlemen who shaped our country in its early stages, believed very strongly in the issue of gun control – namely he was against it. Jefferson believed that in order to secure liberty and freedom, there should be a revolution in America every 20 years. He also believed that it should be a part of every able male’s college education to receive military training and serve on a civil militia in order to protect and maintain a free state – his ideals were, indeed, the very basis for the second amendment of the US Constitution.

But his beliefs were not held necessarily to protect us from each other, but to protect us from government. Any historian will tell you that in order to establish an autocracy, one needs only remove two things from the people – their right to free speech and assembly, and their guns. An unarmed populace is one that is utterly controllable, and as such, not free. It is for this very reason that the right to bear arms is in the interest of both liberty and safety – it ensures a government subject to its people and ensures the rights of the people to defend themselves if necessary.It’s

It’s a common mistake to take the gun-control debate into one direction or the other of making guns available – either you only make guns available to good people, or you don’t make them available to anyone. Both of these ideas, in practice, are impossible to implement. The recent shooter at Virginia Tech had no reason to be disallowed to purchase a gun, even under the concepts proposed by gun control – so it seems that the only way to implement gun-control is to remove them from the private sector all together, which, as we have already discussed, it utterly unconstitutional.

So, we have but one option – allow guns to be kept and born by all Americans. Like I said, the issue was decided more than 200 years ago.

But what is so wrong with letting everyone bear arms? Many people contend that if all people have guns, then gun violence will go down, but I propose the exact opposite – if all people have guns, then nobody will use them. It’s that age-old deterrent of mutually-assured destruction.

For example, let’s say we have a population of 100 people. We give each of them a gun and let them do with it what they please. Let’s say 20 of them throw it away on moral grounds alone, the other 30 percent keep it locked up in their closet at home. That means that if I want to rob or otherwise threaten someone in the population, I have a 50% chance of that person having a gun to defend himself with – and it doesn’t take a statistician to see that 50/50 odds of ending up dead or wounded is a very effective deterrent.

But as Thomas Jefferson stated, the key is education. We have to re-educate ourselves with these concepts of civic duty, with self-defense, and moral use of guns – just like they did 230 years ago. Convincing kids that guns don’t exist will only entice them more to find out for themselves the destructive power of guns – we should make them a part of normal life, just like crossing the street, driving, and eating fast-food. The concept of guns should be as much a part of being an American as voting, practicing free speech, and … well … eating fast-food. Only then will we accomplish that American dream of freedom and safety – both of which are guaranteed under the second amendment.

 ”One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.” –Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796.

 

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