Do you support the Second Amendment?

[DWill]

I just realized with something of a shock that I don't support the Second Amendment. Why is this statement about hardware even in the Constitution? Eight of the rights in the Bill of Rights have continued to be relevant for our democracy right up to the present day. The 2nd and Third (about quarter ing troops) are anachronisms. Fear of a national standing army oppressing the states motivated writing of the 2nd Amendment. If ever justified, that fear clearly is not today.

Justice John Paul Stevens made repealing the 2nd Amendment a cause a decade ago. The cause, unfortunately, was hopeless then, and might be even more so today.

[LanDroid]

I support it in general terms for hunting, sports skills, home defense, etc. Although many second amendment zealots have memorized it including the placement of every comma, they don't really understand it and know little about the rest of the constitution.

They interpret "well regulated" to mean the opposite, somehow allowing no regulations.

Zealots think militias were designed to fight against the Government, but the opposite is true. There are two clauses about the militia in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. A quick scan of those clauses disproves their case.

Clause 15. The Congress shall have Power To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
Clause 16. The Congress shall have Power To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

Zealots also interpret "shall not be infringed" to mean no regulations are permitted. But they already agree to many restrictions on arms. They don't want felons or sex offenders to be armed and move next door to their daughters. They don't want Muslim American citizens to purchase shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles. Fully automatic submachine guns have been strictly controlled for nearly 100 years. Assault weapons were banned in the US for ten years, then that ban expired. Etc. They have simply drawn a red line around everything and want no changes to gun laws except for relaxations.

I don't understand their opposition to universal background checks. They seem to think domestic abusers and every lunatic not currently locked up in a mental hospital should be able to purchase enough weaponry for mass shootings.

I also do not understand their excitement over open and concealed carry without a license, background check, or any training.

[DWill]

I agree with your argument, but the question as I meant to put it was not whether people support allowing citizens to have guns for hunting, sport, or self-defense, but whether a constitutional protection is appropriate for that narrow matter. Only Mexico and Guatemala have joined the U.S. in constitutionally protecting gun ownership—and those two countries have nevertheless placed heavy restrictions on obtaining guns. The U.S. Constitution was influential, of course, imitated by other democracies, except on the subject of guns.
In view of the welter of interpretations that you point out, is the amendment supportable, merely on the basis of sensible law-making? I believe definitely not. But I also believe that striking the entire thing would be preferable to clarifying what it means. When you say you support the 2nd Amendment, are you just accepting the fait accompli, or do you think that gun ownership is a liberty needing special mention in a founding document?
Without this constitutional enshrinement, firearms would be clearly seen as products needing regulation, just as so many other products are.

[LanDroid]

The second amendment is a fait accompli. As I recall the original constitution was ratified with the understanding that a bill of rights was coming. Now imagine removing one of the ten items in the bill of rights. The result would be a national earthquake measuring off the friggin' Richter Scale. That will not happen.

The second amendment could be modified through the complicated long winding process. I doubt there is any revised language that would pass through all those hoops (setting aside complete removal).

That leaves regulation. At some level everyone already understands that restrictions are acceptable. In addition to restricted items listed in my previous post, as a more extreme example there is nothing in the second amendment preventing a wealthy lunatic from procuring an AC-130 Gunship. (I used to work for a company that supplied components for the 105 mm cannon rounds.) Everyone knows private citizens owning hardware like that would be completely insane.

So although regulation is accepted (if only at a semi-conscious level), we are currently at a standstill or going backwards with assault rifles, unlicensed concealed carry, lack of background checks, etc. To be honest, I gave up on this whole thing when nothing was done after Sandy Hook. If America actually wanted to fix this problem, we would have already done so. Mass shootings are a permanent "feature" of American culture.

[geo]

I just realized with something of a shock that I don't support the Second Amendment. Why is this statement about hardware even in the Constitution? Eight of the rights in the Bill of Rights have continued to be relevant for our democracy right up to the present day.

I support the Second Amendment, but I also think our right to bear arms has to be reinterpreted by saner minds. Even Justice Scalia wrote (in the Heller case) that gun ownership is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. So we can and should ban assault rifles and other weapons of mass killing. The backlash to establishing reasonable gun laws in our nation is the result of a crazy gun culture that has been enshrined by the GOP—Guns Over People. These people do not care about the Constitution or the rule of law.

[LanDroid]

If banning (AR-15 Assault rifles) outright seems like too extreme a solution to be politically palatable, here's another option: Reclassify semi-automatic rifles as Class 3 firearms. That would mean that someone wanting to purchase an AR-15 would have to go through a background check, fingerprinting and review by an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- a process that takes anywhere from 12 to 16 months. And since Class 3 weapons can't be purchased by anyone younger than 21, it would solve the issue of emotionally unstable 18-year-olds buying them.

A Class 3 firearm reclassification would also make those who are approved to purchase these weapons subject to an annual check that they are complying with federal regulations regarding secure storage of the firearm, and to confirm their licensing and other paperwork is up to date. All of these hoops and hurdles are sure to reduce the civilian demand for these weapons.

6/6/22
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/05/opinions ... index.html

An interesting suggestion from Michael Fanone, one of the police officers who became famous after the Jan 6 attack at the Capitol Bldg.

[Chris OConnor]

This is a great conversation and so very important and relevant right now. I think my opinion on the matter is very much aligned with LanDroid, and all of the rest of you for that matter.

Things are completely out of control in this country with regard to guns. Our founders did not have any idea about assault weapons when they wrote the second amendment.

[Robert Tulip]

David French has an interesting take on the gun debate in Divided We Fall. He writes, in analysing conservative philosophy more broadly, that “conservatives don’t just hate their liberal counterparts; they despise the perceived culture of blue America. They’re repulsed by the notion that personal security should depend almost completely on the government. The sense of dependence is at odds with their view of a free citizenry, and – to put it bluntly – they perceive their progressive fellow citizens as soft and unmanly.”

Prizing the values of competition over cooperation and autonomy over dependency places gun ownership as a central talisman of cultural identity, like a religious symbol. American frontier freedom is symbolised by the self-reliance secured by guns. People see these rugged values as central to why America is rich and successful as a nation, and see mass shootings as minor collateral damage in defence of the culture of liberty.

French writes that gun culture is part of a ‘Kulturkampf’, German for cultural struggle, in which defence of guns and refusal to accept regulation is all about a way of life. How ‘gun culture’ is lived in red America is something that progressives do not care to grasp, reflecting a mutual loathing that precludes consideration of conflicting views.

[LanDroid]

Prizing the values of competition over cooperation and autonomy over dependency places gun ownership as a central talisman of cultural identity, like a religious symbol.

This reminds me of our BookTalk discussion of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good by Colin Woodard. As the title states, there is an ongoing battle between "the values of competition over cooperation and autonomy over dependency places ." Will the pendulum ever swing back to cooperation and interdependence? That does not feel likely at this point...

[DWill]

Prizing the values of competition over cooperation and autonomy over dependency places gun ownership as a central talisman of cultural identity, like a religious symbol.

This reminds me of our BookTalk discussion of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good by Colin Woodard. As the title states, there is an ongoing battle between "the values of competition over cooperation and autonomy over dependency places ." Will the pendulum ever swing back to cooperation and interdependence? That does not feel likely at this point...

Speaking of religion, I wish the Christians who see guns as sacred, and take a literal view of the Second amendment ("shall not be infringed") would realize their inconsistency in not taking the 6th Commandment literally ("Thou shalt not kill.")

The Second Amendment stands in the way of any effective legislation on gun control on the national level. States such as New York have made changes and good for them, but we're stuck in the grip of fanatical devotion to one poorly drafted piece of our Constitution. Send it back for rewrite, if guns need to be mentioned at all, which in my view they don't. The historical conditions that made the firearms clause seem needed have long since disappeared. We have our militias, the National Guard. Repeal is long overdue.