The United States Constitution is the very fabric of our law and our lives. It should not be lightly modified. If we make a case for the changing effect of time and culture, we open a can of worms that may be hard to close.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution, written and polished by noble and fervent Americans living at a time when a new nation was coming into being, took measures
to protect the rights of Americans to “keep and bear” arms. Courts subsequently ruled that the Second Amendment protected Americans’ right to possess firearms unconnected to a militia, although the need for a standing and present militia was then a real necessity, and the matter was discussed at length.
Some reports of these long-past events suggest that care was taken to avoid the unpleasantness of a "right of citizens to own arms provision" which might be used to provide armaments to those who would overrule a government, in a situation wherein that government no longer had the trust and support of the majority of people.
The Second Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. Again, that’s December. Of 1791.
We may take a moment to call to mind what life in these United States was like in that early time. While civilization was booming in the east, life in the interior and farther west was far from civil. As Americans in covered wagons sought to make homesteads, farms, areas to breed cattle, they encountered Indians native to the region. The history of the defeat of the Indians is a tragic page in American history. The early settlers had to deal as individuals with bad men and rustlers. Gun-wielding bloodthirsty thieves, lawless criminals ran unchecked, out to take everything available for themselves. These lawless riders of the plains were often vicious; they worked in union with others of that ilk. When settlements turned to towns, and later, towns turned to small cities, there was little or no law. Some brave men rose up to protect the community; in some areas sheriffs were elected. Still we can imagine the plight of a man with a wife and children in those trying times.
One early sheriff and fighter for the people was the famed Wyatt Earp, believed to have been born on March 19, 1848.
Earp worked for the law and helped to tame the west. He is remembered for a famous historical gunfight at the OK corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Earp’s birth was nearly 60 years after the passage of the Bill of Rights.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - crake
I believe "we" should heavily sensor the web because, lets face it, the constitution is a document written by old white guys; and that first amendment is far to dangerous. This collective would be much better off without the first, second, third, forth, and fifth amendments.
2 - weak sauce
If government can edit or rewrite the constitution based o an ever changing political climate, would be the most wreckless thing in the history of this country. The day they attempt to rewrite it, is the day our own military will turn on its government. Trust me when I say that the constitution is the entire reason our top ranking military officials serve.
3 - John Lake
Weak sauce: Precisely my sentiment, as you might guess from my picturesque "can of worms" mention.
But with the killing in cities, that particular amendment might be subject to updating.
And crake: Old white guys are among my favorite! People in the old west needed guns. Now, we don't.
4 - Igor
Wyatt Earp enforced "no gun" laws in rowdy frontier towns, mostly thru agility and ability to whip out his pistol and bonk a drunk cowboy on the head before he could cause trouble.
5 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Much depends on the area we live in. People in big cities like New York City don't really need guns because there is a large police force of over 30,000 officers. For a person in the middle of a desert with no police around, then the case for gun ownership makes sense.
Recreational use of guns is another problem. This needs to be controlled by licensing and registration. In addition, gun owners should be required to take seminars in gun safety in the same way that drivers of cars take continuing seminars to have their insurance costs reduced.
The difference with guns is that the periodic seminars should be mandatory instead of just being required to reduce the insurance premium. Gun owners need to sign affidavits which state that they've taken precautions in maintaining their guns away from people in the household who are unlicensed.
In addition, those who purchase guns for recreation should be restricted from buying the more sophisticated weaponry available. Guns crossing state lines is another area which requires constant vigilance. I've never owned a gun and probably never will.
6 - crake
That’s the funny thing about needs. If we all lived strictly to meet our needs, life would not be fun. Well, maybe it would be fun, if some of your needs involved entertainment. In my case, I'm a competitive pistol shooter, and I enjoy it - I don’t "need" it. It’s no different than a BMX, dirt bike riding, race car driving, cliff scaling, base jumping, crack grinding, boxing, UFC, knife throwing, chainsaw wooding cutting etc. etc. kind of hobby... "We" don’t need a collective solution to a personal problem. These rampant shooters - I guarantee you, if desperate enough - will not only violate laws against murder, but they'll violate future gun laws, and perhaps even worse…
7 - crake
We need more barriers to entry.
We need more paper, a slower process.
We need to track every projectile, to drive up prices.
We need compulsory gun owners insurance.
We need several more federal agencies with arresting powers.
We need more gun control, less raw milk and no fricken lemonade stands unless you have papers.
Papers please...
We need the 10th amendment, screw the 1st through 5...
8 - Dr Dreadful
Crake, weren't you objecting earlier on to a reductio ad absurdum?
Seems to me you're doing the same thing here, or at any rate the common variant known as the slippery slope fallacy.
9 - Crake
Yes, I was being a little hypocritical... I just couldn't resist :)
10 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
We need a registration procedure that's simple but cost effective and practical. We need better control
over interstate sales-particularly for the more lethal weapons with a rapid fire capability. In addition,
gun owners need to sign affidavits regarding the steps they've taken to keep guns out of the hands
of other family members and the public. A continuing education procedure is in order as is done
with automobile insurance except that the continuing education should be mandatory. Criminals will
always find ways to circumvent the laws; however, this case was a situation where the mother had
custody over the weapons used in the crime. At some point, she lost control over the guns which
got into the hands of the son Adam. We need a control to prevent this in the future. Maybe an
automatic gun lock is the answer so that only the owner can disengage the locking mechanism.
11 - Glenn Contrarian
Crake -
You'll find that most of us liberals do NOT want to get rid of all the guns, but we DO want sensible gun regulations: registration for all guns, background checks for anyone buying a gun anywhere, no automatic weapons, no assault rifles, no high-capacity clips.
Personally, I'd add mandatory insurance, mandatory reporting of all private sales and transfer of ownerships and stolen weapons, and mandatory safety training (even if it's given by the NRA).
And you know what? With the exception of the insurance, all the above is LESS than what Switzerland requires for gun ownership!
We don't want to take away your toys, Crake - we want to keep those toys out of the hands of young men who don't know the meaning of responsibility.
12 - Clavos
We don't want to take away your toys, Crake - we want to keep those toys out of the hands of young men who don't know the meaning of responsibility.
If you don't eliminate ALL the guns (an impossibility), you won't succeed.
A better plan would be to return to active and effective identification and treatment (including locking up where appropriate) those suffering from mental diseases and conditions.
13 - Clavos
A pretty good analysis of why merely controlling gun ownership will not eliminate their unlawful use.
14 - Christopher Rose
Is anybody actually saying that merely controlling gun ownership will eliminate their unlawful use?
Nothing in isolation will achieve that, just like taking a single step is not the same as going for a walk. Reducing the number of weapons circulating in a civil population will help reduce their use though, that is for sure.
15 - Clavos
Reducing the number of weapons circulating in a civil population will help reduce their use though, that is for sure.
Not likely. As long as there are guns out there, they will be easy to obtain for those not averse to breaking the law.
16 - Glenn Contrarian
Clav -
If controlling - regulating - gun ownership doesn't work, then why are Switzerland and Israel so successful at it? They've both got high rates of ownership, but also have significantly greater gun control regulation than we do.
17 - Dr. Joseph S. Maresca
Glenn, I think you stumbled into the answer.
18 - Baronius
No automatic weapons, no assault rifles...
There aren't any automatic weapons on the streets. They're illegal, rare, and expensive. And they've never been used in a modern (post-Prohibition) mass shooting in the US. Ditto with assault rifles. Now, assault weapons are different, but it turns out that there's no such thing as an assault weapon beyond the legal definition. In terms of capability, they're the same as any other semi-automatic weapon (which account for the vast majority of all firearms made since we moved past muskets). I know, it sounds like NRA propaganda, but there really isn't such a thing as an assault weapon. It's arbitrary. The civilian "AK-47" you could find in the US is designed to look like something it's not. It's like those Mazdas that look kind of like Porsches, but when you put your foot down on the gas pedal, it ain't no Porsche. We banned assault weapons for ten years, from 1994-2004. There was no decrease in gun crime when the ban went through, and no increase when it was discontinued. This is a classic example of legislation that makes the voter feel better, but has no real impact.
19 - Clavos
They've both got high rates of ownership, but also have significantly greater gun control regulation than we do.
1. They have a much greater respect for authority than Americans do. Americans tend to be far more individualistic and iconoclastic. If you look closely enough, you'll see that both the Swiss and the Israelis are more obedient to and respectful of, both authority and the law than Americans (as a group).
2. The Israelis also are far more successful in protecting their commercial aviation than America is, mostly because they are willing to use techniques (profiling is one such) that Americans are squeamish about. Swiss society is far more docile and regimented than Americans would ever put up with.
Apples and oranges, Glenn.
20 - Christopher Rose
"Reducing the number of weapons circulating in a civil population will help reduce their use though, that is for sure.
Not likely. As long as there are guns out there, they will be easy to obtain for those not averse to breaking the law."
Clavos, your response is not relevant to the remark, maybe it is time to abandon the dogma and get real?
Reducing the availability of guns will obviously make it harder to get hold of them.
Those "not averse to breaking the law" are a different class of person than those who commit the kinds of acts we have seen in Newtown.
This was a very safe, respectable, small town with a very quiet way of life. The mother of the perp felt the need to own 5 guns, including the semi-automatic rifle, for her own safety, despite the fact that the threat level was about as low as it is likely to get in the USA.
If she hadn't been so seemingly paranoid and hadn't been able to get so many guns, including the rifle, this wouldn't have happened in the way it did.
We can't do much about her state of mind (short of psychological assessment of everyone buying a gun and a deeper assessment of people who want to own multiple weapons and the conditions they keep them in), but we could have done something to stop her so readily indulging it.
Whilst I'm at it, it is a complete myth that Americans tend to be "far more individual and iconoclastic". My experience of them has been that the vast majority are pretty conservative.
This is about as true as it being the land of the free, another popular but completely inaccurate idea everyone seems to have bought in to.
21 - Clavos
Those "not averse to breaking the law" are a different class of person than those who commit the kinds of acts we have seen in Newtown
True, but they will be happy to supply them to those who do.
Merely "reducing" the number of guns in the population will do little to prevent future Newtown incidents.
A far better idea is to concentrate on identifying and helping (and if necessary, isolating) mental health patients before they commit these atrocities.
22 - Clavos
it is a complete myth that Americans tend to be "far more individual and iconoclastic".
Uh huh.
Data?
23 - Clavos
And further, you took my comment out of context. in context, I was comparing American individualism and iconoclasm to those attitudes among the Swiss and Israelis specifically.
24 - troll
some (wiki)lists of interest for the likes of Baronius:
List of rampage killers: Europe
List of rampage killers: Americas
List of school massacres
@ #20 - Chris while he is able to take care of himself rather than simply dismissing Clavos' comment as non-responsive you might consider the context in which it makes sense: eg the UN's Small Arms Survey work indicates that common sense notwithstanding saturation with legal (and therefore controllable) firearms isn't all that clearly correlated with a country's rate of homicide involving firearms which can be seen comparing {Europe - high saturation of legal firearms/low rate} and {Central and South America - low saturation of legal firearms/high rate}
25 - Dr Dreadful
Clav @ #22:
Data?
I don't know where you'd get hard data, but the very first article I ever wrote for BC may contain some insights. Please excuse the shameless self-promotion.