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TechnoratiThe gun lobby at last holds its Holy Grail: a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that the oddly worded Second Amendment, which speaks of a "well regulated militia" in the same sentence as "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," does, in fact, bestow upon individuals a constitutional right to own weapons.
Yet it seems that the most extreme crusaders of the right were not sufficiently careful in what they wished for. Even the five conservative justices who took their side and overturned decades of precedent to discover this "right" to private gun ownership believe that Congress and, apparently, states and cities have a perfect right -- if not an obligation -- to impose a host of restrictions on who can own a gun and where a firearm may be carried.
In other words, gun control is not the same as gun confiscation.
Most of the public has believed in this common sense for quite a long time. Yet polls that show strong support for gun control hasn't stopped the gun lobby from arguing, even after the bloodiest and most emotionally shocking rampages, such as those at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, that sensible restrictions aimed at controlling who owns a gun and where it can be carried amount to an illegal intrusion upon its rights. After the Virginia Tech slayings, for example, several gun-rights groups argued that the answer was to lift a broad prohibition against carrying guns on college campuses.
The Supreme Court ruling struck down the District of Columbia law that effectively banned the ownership of handguns, the strictest gun-control law in the nation and one the gun lobby therefore had targeted for obliteration. But the high court simultaneously eviscerated a dogma that the high priests of the gun-rights lobby have long promoted: The justices -- even Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion -- effectively eliminated the argument that regulating guns is somehow equivalent to seizing them. And Scalia endorsed, with some specificity, a host of gun regulations that embrace pretty much every approach that various states and cities have been putting into place since the late 1960s. These are, it must be noted, the very sorts of laws the gun lobby has doggedly and noisily protested.
"Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," Scalia wrote.
We do not know, in specific terms, just how the avalanche of lawsuits the gun lobby now intends to bring against federal and state gun regulations will turn out. That's another ironic outcome of the conservatives' great triumph: A movement that loudly protests the litigation explosion now promises coast-to-coast courtroom pyrotechnics over laws that have been in force for years. Ironically, one of the gun lobby's recent endeavors has been a campaign to block big-city mayors and gun-violence victims from suing gun manufacturers and unscrupulous dealers.
But one man's frivolous lawsuit is now, apparently, fundamental to another's pursuit of freedom.
The gun lobby already has filed suit against municipalities that have laws similar to the one struck down in the District of Columbia. Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, told me that licensing and permitting systems, such as the one long in place in New York City, also could be targeted. "We don't like the licensing of freedom," he says. "We consider that the same as licensing someone to go to church or to speak."
So the lid of the Pandora's box of new gun litigation has sprung wide open. Courts around the country will be asked to decide on public safety strategies that traditionally have been determined by legislatures and city councils. "All of these issues are going to have to be litigated in the courts," says Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington. "This is exactly the opposite of what conservatives say they want the courts to do."
But consistency never seems to do when political expediency requires another course. That is a hobgoblin the high court ignored when it reversed the historical interpretation to discover an individual right to bear arms. Now, then, for the definition of what responsibilities go along with this new right.
--Marie Cocco
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
15 Comments so far
Show AllLeeAnnG wrote: "I have an acquaintance who firmly believes the killing spree at Virginia Tech would have been stopped if every student carried a gun!"
I can see it now ...
Cho enters West Ambler Johnston Hall, pulls out his gun, and shoots Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark in Hilscher's room. Fortunately, as he leaves he passes by Clark Kentstate, who knows just what to do: He pulls a machine pistol out of his hockey bag and riddles the rogue student with bullets. Cho drops before he can kill more people. The gunfire and commotion attract the attention of some other students. Unfortunately, Big Al "The Swiss" was worrying about his medical exam and doesn't focus on the scene in time to see Cho shoot anyone. At the other end of the hall, Joan Dark is going out for riding practice and doesn't fully understand the situation either. Both of them see some bodies on the floor and a man holding an automatic weapon. Big Al mutters "We must be cruel to be kind", and performs some 9mm humanitarian intervention. At the same time, Joan yanks her father's Colt out from under her Kevlar vest to defend her fellow students. Kentstate goes down, bleeding from several bullet wounds of two different sizes. Unfortunately neither of them aced the handgun course, so a few other students collapse screaming. At that moment, as if by coincidence, the crowd parts and reveals an infernal scene to Hilda Bingen: Several bodies on the floor -- some writhing, some still -- and two people apparently shooting at each other. She shakes her Saturday night special out of her habit ...
adamsrw,
i believe at that time, "militias" were formed by all males who qualified, so there would have been no distinction between militia members and gun owners.
---
as to switzerland, it is not a counterexample. swiss gun regulations are extremely strict. universal possession does not imply lax regulation.
If the founders were only talking about a regulated militia only that was allowed to bear arms, then why weren't they arresting all those who had firearms but were not part of a militia back then?
Hi GT,
The point of comparing the right to drive to gun ownership is that neither is absolute – and by the way, the "right" to drive falls under the "blessings of liberty" and the ninth amendment.
Cocco's point is that Scalia supported "conditions and qualifications" (just as there are conditions and qualifications for driving), but that now the courts, rather than the legislature, will decide which are acceptable.
LeeAnnG might have overcome your counterexample of Switzerland by simply adding "Although there are exceptions to the rule," before "In countries where guns are controlled, gun death is lower." Logic requires that the U. S. be shown to be, in fact, another exception to the rule. It also requires showing that gun deaths are lower in Switzerland than they otherwise would be with gun control.
"Now look ladies…" I will assume that you are old enough that you mean no harm by this, but most people will take this and what follows as dated, sexist clichés. Your argument gains nothing from linking irrational fear to women. This is called, I believe, an unnecessary hypothesis.
The RELATIVE size of the risk is not the point and does not make it an irrational fear. People can address both large and small risks. The point is that the risk of gun death can be managed.
To your point linking gun deaths and Ritalin I can only say, Source?
I understand and appreciate the larger context of your argument that might find philosophical sympathy with Proudhon and similar defenders of individual and minority rights against government.
CJM and GT, I leave you with quotation you both might appreciate
"Can one generation bind another and all others in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will." --Thomas Jefferson
We don't mind trashing the First, Fourth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments in the name of security, but this perverse interpretation of the Second is sacrosanct. We lose more Americans to guns every 2 or 3 months than we lost on 9/11.
AdjunctS, you do NOT have the 'right' to drive a car.
If you want to test that, try driving one without the permission of your masters. Drive an unregistered vehicle without insurance and while not holding a permission slip from the organisation that wants to hold the monopoly on gun possession.
Pretty soon, you will get pulled over by a guy with a gun, who will write you up. If you refuse to pay, you will - eventually - get visited by several goons with guns who will take you away and put you in a cell.
LeeAnnG - "In countries where guns are controlled, gun death is lower."
Ever been to Switzerland? Gun ownership is MANDATORY for adult males. Lowest gun violence rate in Europe, last I looked.
Now look ladies (no surprises there - the fairer sex are always more prone to being swayed by emotionally shocking but statistically miniscule risks)...
I don't own a gun. Never have, and doubt that I ever will. I think that a lot of folks who own guns are complete wankers. So I'm not a 'gun nut' by any conceivable stretch.
What I WOULD ask you to think about is this.
How much of the gun violence in the US is 'turf protection' by drug gangs? Drug gang violence is a direct result of the ludicrous prohibition of relatively unharmful substances.
How many of the roughly 10k gun related deaths per annum in the US are perpetrated by law enforcement? They have to be deducted from your 'shocking' stats.
Here's a hint as to how to reduce Columbine style killings (and frankly 8 or 9 dead is NOT a 'massacre'... if you want a massacre go see Fallujah).
Don't medicate young men. Simple, really.
Don't put 1 in 3 males aged 12-25 on psychotropics (like Ritalin) in a bid to make them manageable for the dullards who oversee public school classes. Coz that shit will fuck them up, yo. You feel me?
The US has had relatively liberal gun ownership laws for the overwhelming majority of its history - because the fellows who wrote the Consitution had LIVED THROUGH a period where teh government had sought to disarm the populace. They had seen it happen elsewhere, and their thoughts were very clear - gun ownership is a very useful deterrent to tyranny.
Now - talking about the Constitution... I happen to be of the school that a 200-year old document that I didn't sign, can't bind me. I hold all political documents to be non-binding to the extent that they limit my rights unless my signature is affixed to the document itself. So I see each dollar extracted by a government as having been extorted (under threat of violence, kidnap and imprisonment, let's not forget).
Much as I have a good deal of respect for Jefferson, Franklin, Paine and the rest, they purported to make their declaration on behalf of an entire population - when at best they spoke for about a third of it. I am all for the overthrow of despotic regimes - but claiming to speak for the entire populace is a violation of their rights.
Until we move to a rights based society, the fragmentation that we see in people's interactions - social disintermediation - will become worse and worse, becasue people will throw up their hands and declare that there is no point to doing their bit.
(side-bar - When I speak of rights I speak of things that exist a priori (read http://jim.com/spooner.htm to get the gist), which governments are supposed to exist ONLY to uphold, and never to infringe.)
So much as I think most NRA types are repressed homosexuals (who just LOVED them some naked man-chest when it belonged to Charlton Heston), I find myself on their side in this debate. I am NOT on the side of that political hack Scalia (I am not on the side of ANY political appointee... men who spend their entire lives triangulating and suckling from the public teat should not be able to get as fat as Scalia).
Cheerio
GT
France
Where 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity' is the national motto, but 1 in 2000 inhabitants is an armed goon (i.e., carries a gun on behalf of the State).
Why do gun advocates continually resort to hyperbole and scare tactics to defend their position? Maybe because logic fails...
"..the criminals always manage to get guns, while the law-abiding citizen's rights are trampled upon."
Trampled upon? C'mon, JaneM, you've got to do better than to spout decades-old NRA sound bite doctrine. By your logic we shouldn't have any laws because there will always be criminals who violate them.
frank1569 - comparing gun deaths with auto deaths a ridiculous argument. The automobile is, unfortunately, virtually a necessity in today's world. Owning a gun is a luxury. Just because more people die on the road doesn't mean unregulated gun ownership is a good idea.
Kem, it is also said that gun owners are 300% more likely to be shot than those without guns. The gun lobby doesn't want you to know owning a gun is faster than smoking cigarettes.
When annual gun deaths are quoted, it's seldom mentioned that 55% are suicides.
Frank,
A hypocrite is someone who pretends to believe one thing while actually believing another. I see no reason to doubt Ms Cocco's sincerity.
It does not seem hypocritical, and I can imagine practical and personal reasons, why someone would focus on gun regulation rather than auto regulation.
For example, to me it would be patronizing to tell Mrs. Brady, "Yes, a crazy man shot your police officer husband when he shot President Reagan, but more people are killed by cars, so go join Mothers Against Drunk Driving."
But let's say she did that, and she advocated "even harder for super-strong 'vehicle control.'" Would it then be OK for her to say something about "gun control?"
Don't the merits of each argument actually stand on their own? Couldn't this argument ("work on the more important issue, hypocrites") be turned around -- "don't waste your time defending gun ownership when what is really important is making our highways safe"?
It makes no sense to insist that everybody work always and only against the worst problem in the world -- this is the kind of reasoning that leads some to say give up on fighting the war; fight global warming.
Let's follow the comparison of driving and guns, it seems it would be OK to have "more intensive GUN training" with "retesting every other year." And also to have the "production of really safe, solid" GUNS, and finally that there is no "Constitutional right to USE A GUN without any training or experience."
The question remains: does the government have ANY role in regulating guns? reasonable people might disagree -- please, no more name calling.
Someone mentioned vehicles but didn't make the bigger point: on the same day of the Virgina Tech shootings, approximately 140 other Americans died in a vehicle "accident." And, the next day, another 140 Americans died the same way. And the next, and the next...
From the FBI: "The FBI's Crime in the United States estimated that 66% of the 16,137 murders in 2004 were committed with firearms." That's about 10,000 - compared to over 40,000 dead per year on the road (not to mention the over 1 million injured and over $6 billion in damage, lost work, med costs, etc.)
And the vast majority of those 10,000 were not random murders, they were criminal v. criminal, or one-off crimes of passion. And the vast majority of the other 6,000 were crimes of passion committed with whatever was handy.
Those hypocrites who continue to demand ever-stronger "gun control" should be fighting even harder for super-strong "vehicle control." Why aren't they demanding more intensive driver training? And retesting every other year? Or the production of really safe, solid vehicles (bumpers right now only have to withstand a 2mph collision)?
Is there a Constitutional right to drive without any training or experience at high speeds while yapping on the cell and juggling a donut?
Has anyone considered that, however good it might have been, the Constitution was a product of its time, and might need bringing up to date?
Foe example, were the framers able to imagine the internet, and the pornography that is now available at the click of a button to anyone, do you think think they might have had something to say about that? That already presumes they could believe it possible that people would behave that way.
The Constitution was not in Moses's other hand when he came back from his meeting with Big G.
And I have GWB to back me -- he thinks it only a piece of paper anyway.
JaneM, that's a misguided notion. The US has the highest gun death rate in the so-called civilized world. In countries where guns are controlled, gun death is lower.
Of course, it just might be other negative attributes of US culture, like the glorification of violence, fearmongering, the obscene divide between the wealthy and the poor, inner city crowding, the war on drugs, and a lot of other issues that cause gun violence. So it's not an easy matter to figure out.
Bowling for Columbine does a great job of exploring the fear factor. But in any case, an increase in guns in the hands of law abiding citizens also does not lower gun violence that comes from criminals. Most people don't know how to fight back with guns when confronted by a criminal.
Just because something illegal continues in spite of laws against it doesn't provide an argument against regulating it. It's illegal to kill someone, but murders continue. Should we make murder legal so that law abiding citizens can compete with criminals for the right to do so? Hey! If you regulate murder, theft, and rape, only criminals will commit those crimes!
I have an acquaintance who firmly believes the killing spree at Virginia Tech would have been stopped if every student carried a gun! Maybe so, but I'd almost be willing to bet that as many deaths would occur over time if that were the case. Maybe not all at one time, but accidents, revenge, and other incidents would probably add up.
We regulate cars, alcohol, marriage, prescription drugs and a host of other things. (Having said all this, I am a true believer in ending the war on drugs. It's one example of a truly failed policy, and I think drugs should be legal. But regulated, like alcohol.)
The whole gun thing is such an emotional issue, it's not even close to rational.
I hope Ms. Cocco's plausible interpretation of District of Columbia v. Heller is correct. Meanwhile, the publicity surrounding this particular case has overwhelmed discussion of several other bizarre and reactionary rulings, like Chamber of Commerce v. Brown, where the Court ruled that states can't prevent government contractors from diverting money meant for health care or other public services to paying union-busting lawyers, or Rowe v. NH Motor Transport Association, which eliminates state laws banning mail-order cigarette sales to minors.
Nathan Newman has a good survey of a whole series of similarly reactionary rulings at http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/30/at_supreme_court_states_... where the meaning of "reactionary" is a return to the Nineteenth Century style of unlimited corporate predation.
Hmm...
So we all have the right to drive a car -- freedom of movement, property etc.
But does anybody get to drive any kind of car anywhere we want at any speed?
"We don't like the licensing of freedom [TO DRIVE TO SELL ALCOHOL, TO PRACTICE MEDICINE???]," he says. "We consider that the same as licensing someone to go to church or to speak."
Is it the same?
I'm not holding my breath for Scalia to overturn the "Yelling fire in a crowded theater" prohibition
Or for the NRA to take up the cause of free speech and challenge the restricted "free speech zones" at the upcoming Party conventions.
The nagging problem that never is solved is that with all the gun regulations in the world, the criminals always manage to get guns, while the law-abiding citizen's rights are trampled upon.