“Poor Elijah’s Almanack” is written by Peter Berger of Mount Holly, who taught English and history for 30 years.
Ten years ago, in the wake of Sandy Hook, a plaintive headline begged, “Can we now talk about guns?”
It was a response to the perennial assertion, offered chiefly by Republicans, that the grief-stricken, furious aftermath of tragedy isn’t the best time to craft firearms regulations.
The first few times you hear it, it can almost sound sensible. However, nobody recommended that we postpone dealing with Japan because we were grieving and angry after Pearl Harbor. Heartbreak, rage and rational thought aren’t mutually exclusive.
Four years ago after Parkland, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged — in what had already become a tradition — that we “pray,” “take a breath and collect the facts.” He warned against politicizing the murder of another 17 high school students.
I pray, and I try to heed facts. But how many more facts about mass shootings do we need? How many more prayers in the absence of action will we have the gall to offer grieving parents? How many shoppers have to die in the produce aisle?
Politics is more than an exercise in self-exculpatory rhetoric. It’s more than jockeying for partisan advantage. It’s the application of legitimate government power to problems we share.
In that sense, it’s time we do politicize this issue.
The Second Amendment was adopted to enable citizens to protect themselves and their republic. Commentators and jurists have cited it as evidence of a free citizenry’s inherent right to self-defense. Given many founders’ mistrust of a standing federal army, it’s also been interpreted in the context of a state’s right to maintain a “well-regulated militia” as a hedge against prospective tyranny.
An individual right to keep and bear arms wasn’t explicitly affirmed by the Supreme Court until 2008. Justice Scalia, who wrote the court’s majority opinion, was careful to make clear that “like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited … not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Federal, state and local governments, for example, can ban weapons considered “dangerous and unusual,” regulate the sale of weapons, and prohibit their possession by certain citizens including “felons and the mentally ill.” The government can also impose “concealed weapons prohibitions” and laws that forbid carrying “firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”
In short, the Second Amendment doesn’t outlaw universal background checks. It doesn’t protect “ghost guns” or gun show exemptions.
Yes, the Second Amendment establishes our right to keep and bear arms. But its neglected first half, the part that talks about a “well-regulated” militia, allows the government we appoint to make rules about gun ownership and use.
For heaven’s sake, “well-regulated” is part of the amendment.
Opponents of gun restrictions worry about a “slippery slope” where one rule leads to another until their right disappears. I’m sympathetic. The First Amendment is especially dear to me, so I’ve got slippery slope fears and objections, too.
Except the government can and has made laws that restrain speech. I can’t slander you, for example. Speech that poses a “clear and present danger” can also be restricted.
In the same way, we already have restrictions on gun ownership. FDR and Ronald Reagan both signed laws limiting automatic weapons. Eleven states ban armor-piercing bullets. You can’t buy a howitzer at Dick’s.
The Constitution isn’t meant to be interpreted absent reason and common sense. No one would argue that the First Amendment’s protection of the “free exercise” of religion guarantees an American Aztec’s right to offer human sacrifice. That’s because his right to practice his religion is outweighed by his victim’s unalienable right to life.
No right is absolute. The Second Amendment exists in a context, not a vacuum. It isn’t above all other rights. Our government was instituted to protect our rights, but those rights extend beyond the right to bear arms.
The question isn’t whether we can regulate gun ownership and use. Reason and the language in the Second Amendment itself tell us we can. In fact, that language imposes a responsibility to well-regulate ourselves.
I appreciate the argument that lawbreakers won’t respect gun laws, and that law-abiding citizens should be able to protect themselves. It’s true that no course of action will eliminate every bad act. But we can’t shrink from making laws just because some people won’t obey them, especially when we repeatedly witness the devastating result of broadly unrestricted gun ownership.
We have problems. Many American homes are dysfunctional. Many American children suffer as a result.
We’ve spent two generations stroking children’s self-esteem. In the process, we’ve stunted their power to deal with adversity. We talk about grit and resiliency, but for many, every slight and encounter that doesn’t go their way is an affront that warrants retribution. In extreme cases, that retribution is extreme.
Bandwagon discipline theories, “trauma-based” classroom practices, and anti-bullying programs trade in well-intentioned, smug nonsense. Gun violence at school should outrage us, but we should also be outraged by the expert-approved trauma that students suffer every day at the hands of violent, disruptive peers.
Schools should take prudent precautions against foreseeable hazards, but schools should never be fortresses. It’s their nature to be soft targets because children live there.
Critics pillory law enforcement agencies for failing to track aberrant behavior and threats that foreshadow violence. As tragic as those lapses may be, they aren’t deliberate acts.
The same cannot be said about the law our 45th president deliberately signed that repealed restrictions on a “mentally defective” applicant’s ability to purchase a gun. The same cannot be said about the Senate’s deliberate vote permitting subjects on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns. The same cannot be said about gun lobbyists’ deliberate marketing promotions, and many legislators’ willing susceptibility to extortion and contributions.
The same cannot be said about malignant talking heads who exacerbate our race-based, gender-based and faith-based fears and differences.
I began writing this in the wake of the supermarket murders. A thousand words later, yet another 19 schoolchildren and two of their teachers are dead.
It’s ludicrous to pretend that guns aren’t part of our gun problem.
No good will come if we do nothing good.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Peter Berger: It’s ludicrous to pretend that guns aren’t part of our gun problem.