Guns in America

I expected to wake up on Monday and make a snarky and pithy post about turning 30. Instead, as I made my morning coffee and turned on the news the massacre at Virginia Tech began to unravel. At first it was reported that a shooting had taken place on campus and that "only" a single individual was dead. Horrifyingly though the story became much worse.

I know all too well the pain of losing a loved one to a crazed individual with a gun. What the family and friends of the victims are going and will go through in the coming days/weeks/months is unimaginable to anyone who hasn't experienced it ... I sincerely hope none of you ever know that pain.

Several weeks ago I promised to blog about American gun laws as the last part of the series I wrote about my brother's murder. Unfortunately, the time has come to write about that subject.

Many pundits, politicians, and various other opinionated persons have stated that now is not the time to debate gun laws/gun regulation in America. However, just yesterday in the immediate wake of the shooting, before we even knew the death toll, John McCain stated,

I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon. Obviously we have to keep guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

Really Sen. McCain? Because to me that's not what the 2nd Amendment says. The 2nd reads 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.

See there's a comma in there, not a period. The second clause is dependent on the first clause. Today we have a standing military, the National Guard, the FBI, the ATF, Sheriffs' offices, Highway Patrol, local police, etc., etc. However, when the Bill of Rights was written these protection forces didn't exist putting the onus on private citizens and private militias - but the inability to control the militias led to creation of a national military and to a lesser extent domestic police agencies.

So what does all of that mean for the 2nd Amendment? It SHOULD mean its recognized as an anachronistic law that has no place in today's society. But for whatever reasons private gun ownership survived and now organizations like the NRA want to make sure everyone can have any type of weapon they want. The NRA has approximately 4 million members and opposes any reasonable restriction on gun ownership. Since 1989 they are the 31st largest lobby group in terms of hard money donated - however, according to Fortune magazine its their soft money contributions consistently make them one of the 10 most influential lobby groups on the Hill, earning the #1 spot in 2002.

But despite what the NRA wants us to think, the fact is that the SCOTUS has ruled that the 2nd Amendment doesn't actually extend to individuals but rather the state (the whole well regulated militia part) and that the State has every right to regulate weapon ownership. In US v. Miller, SCOTUS stated:

Since the Second Amendment. . . applies only to the right of the State to
maintain a militia and not to the individual's right to bear arms, there
can be no serious claim to any express constitutional right to possess a firearm.

However, that interpretation is under heavy challenge.

Most recently, the biggest defeat for gun control came at the hands of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals as they ruled the The City of DC's restrictive hand gun laws were unconstitutional.

I heard some jackass on MCNBC this morning actually say, "The only way to stop a lunatic with a gun, is another person with a gun." His implication being that if we are ALL armed then no one would commit such crimes. How do you begin to address such flawed logic (or flawgic as I like to call it)? I'm sure he agrees with the NRA's position that we should be able to take our concealed hand guns to work.

So am I suggesting a complete ban on all guns in the hands of private citizens? No. As much as I might actually like that to happen, I'm also a realist and recognize I'll never witness the "repeal" of the 2nd Amendment. However, I think stricter regulation is necessary.

Why is that in order to drive a car one needs: A class on education, use and safety; passing a written and driving exam; be finger printed, photographed and issued a license; required to carry insurance; and if one violates any of these requirement (or numerous other laws) his/her license can be suspended or revoked? Yet to buy a rifle or shotgun anyone over 18 years of age can walk into any neighborhood pawn shop or Wal-Mart and pick one up - with the weakening of the gun laws under Bush and the previous Republican-controlled Congress, buying a hand-gun isn't much more difficult.

Let me put this in perspective: Approximately 28,000 people die every year in the US from guns. That's slightly more than NINE September 11ths EVERY YEAR. Here is a chart comparing gun deaths per 100,000 people in the US to several other nations.

Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):

Homicide Suicide Unintentional

USA 4.08 (1999) 6.08 (1999) 0.42 (1999)

Canada 0.54 (1999) 2.65 (1997) 0.15 (1997)

Switzerland 0.50 (1999) 5.78 (1998) -

Scotland 0.12 (1999) 0.27 (1999) -

England/Wales 0.12 (1999/00) 0.22 (1999) 0.01 (1999)

Japan 0.04* (1998) 0.04 (1995) <0.01>

* Homicide & attempted homicide by handgun

A serious and legitimate debate needs to take place in this country on the issue of gun control and politicians need to have the guts to stand up to the gun lobby and RE-AFFIRM what the SCOTUS has already stated.