You Son Of A Gun!

One of the joys of the US Constitution is that it is a living document, subject to interpretation, and alterable should American society deem it appropriate. It succinctly tells the government what to do, and leaves everything else to the States or the People. Compare to the European Union's Constitution--a pre-fossilized behemoth that tells the People what to do, and regulates practically everything down to how many dustbins should be in a schoolroom.

The Second Amendment reads: 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.

Anti-gun control lobbyists tend to ignore "a well-regulated Militia", and gun control lobbyists tend to ignore "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Both operative phrases are subject to interpretation, hence the debate. But George Mason pithily clarified, "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." All of the Second Amendment's originators and supporters were adamant that "the Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

For my part, I support gun ownership on the same basis that I support gay equality, by following the traditional American ethos that Government is best suited for, and should therefore stick to, Government business. Is there a more striking example of personal freedom than the Pink Pistols?

Those who try to peg support for gun ownership on the Religious Right may have a point, though. Jesus Christ also supported weapons in the home, observing in Luke 11:21 that "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe."

But the Son of God makes a rational argument.

As Patrick Henry put it, "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self-defense?" James Madison similarly remarked, "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust people with arms." More recently, conservative guru Mark Steyn wrote what may be his best perspective on the issue here. And of course an amusing example of this perspective appears in a Japanese admiral's (possibly apocryphal) explanation of why his country did not invade the US mainland after Pearl Harbor. "We did indeed know much about your preparedness," he said. "We knew that probably every second home in your country contained firearms. We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand." The bottom line is that gun-crazy American citizens save lives, not by firing their weapons, but by simply being gun-crazy American citizens. It is also worth adding that many of these gun-toting loonies are gentle souls who collect modern weaponry as a hobby, in a mold related to those who collect ancient swords, medieval maces, or build catapults.

The curious thing is that stricter gun control tends to create more violent crime. In 1999, the tight gun controls in Washington, DC permitted 69 murders per 100,000, a death rate worse than American troops experienced in the Iraq War. The same year, Indianapolis' weaker gun controls resulted in 60 fewer murders per 100,000. And look overseas, where, apparently inspired by the long-time gun control in Northern Ireland (because, you know, it worked so well at preventing the IRA from hurting anyone...) British Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed a "total ban" on home gun ownership, the result of which has been a startling increase in violent crime every year since, with Birmingham's New Year bloodshed in 2003 an especially sad example. The year before, the United Nations revealed that England now has the dubious honor of having the highest crime rate of the world's 20 leading nations. Why? Well, there is the obvious fact that criminals are not likely to stop being criminals because the government bans guns, and those criminals are in fact rather happy that the government opened the door for an entire underground industry devoted to the buying, selling and manufacture of illegal weapons. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, an expert on this matter, called such gun control "the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters."

And despite scaremongering from the likes of Michael Moore, America has a rate of gun violence actually on par with, if not less than, Canada in terms of demographic percentage. Drug-related crime is an oft-marginalized factor, for one, as most homicides are drug-related and, quite frankly, America's War on Drugs functions with the same effectiveness as the UK's War on Guns (and for many of the same reasons). Firearms remain the most effective means of self-defense, particularly for women, and self-defense deters crime. After recently easing its gun control laws, New York recorded its lowest murder rate since the 19th century.

The punchiest argument for guns everywhere is protection from corrupt governments. "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government," wrote Thomas Jefferson. Or as Abraham Lincoln put it, "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." His observation bookends nicely with the fact that every descent into fascism in the modern age was accompanied by the implementation of gun control, and one of the most successful champions of gun control, Adolf Hitler, cleverly noted that "the most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing." Indeed, as a Washington University Law Quarterly article notes, none of the dozens of major genocides of the past 100 years, including China's democide under Mao, occurred against an armed population. And look at efforts against genocide by citizens with firepower, as in the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. It is sadly worth remembering that many gun control laws in the US tended, and still tend, to have racist connotations. Consider the New York State Sullivan Act, originally created with the ulterior motive of keeping guns out of the hands of Italian-Americans.

All of this is especially frightening to consider in view of a United Nations effort to internationally overturn sovereign laws such the Second Amendment, with the UN Secretary-General, facing ever-mounting evidence that an armed populace decreases rather encourages crime (and even if there were an increase, surely it should be weighed against the benefits such as prevention of invasion, tyrannical government and genocide), intends to disarm the world's populace.

But the biggest issue in the US is not gun ownership, but what kind of gun ownership. Fully-automatic and military weapons are rightfully banned and will remain banned, but a ban on 'assault weapons' recently, and rightfully, expired. The ban had no effect on crime, as the criminals simply bought the stuff in unregulated alleyways rather than regulated gun shops. Another claim, more popular nowadays, was that terrorists could use the semi-automatics against Americans, ignoring that terrorists prefer fully-automatics, because a semi-automatic Uzi with one 25-round magazine is no deadlier than a handgun used with three 10-round magazines, but *real* assault weapons like the outlawed fully-automatic Uzi do have questionable merit as a method of home defense ('overkill'). Which brings to point how the ban was entirely arbitrary in its selection: How is a rifle with a 'pistol grip' more dangerous than a standard rifle? How are semi-automatics--which, by the way, cannot "spray bullets"--the toughest guns on the market when big game hunters actually prefer .30-06s and .375 H&Hs? The ban included bayonet mounts, but a long kitchen knife and some duct tape works around that (except for those hobbyists forced to hide some of their World War II paraphernalia), and who exactly anticipated a rash of crimes committed by bayonet charge?

Motor vehicles kill more people than guns, and are used more often in fatal crimes... but we allow people to own and use motor vehicles... however, we require that people pass standardized tests in owning and using motor vehicles... so perhaps a solution is to require people to know how to handle a gun before owning one? This is consistent with the Constitution, and in fact Richard Henry Lee once said, "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." We trust 16-year-olds with difficult-to-learn, two-ton mechanisms that average over a million lbs. of energy per foot, so the rabid paranoia over an easy-to-learn, lightweight mechanism that exerts 250 lbs. of energy per foot simply baffles me.