Shooting Down Gun Control
"If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average
constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware
store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machine gun,
anything
-- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your
friend
no matter what he tells you."
L. Neil Smith --
Why Guns?
There is no question more closely tied to the issue of civil
rights
than gun control. Oneis other civil rights mean nothing without the means
to
defend them.
Gun Control is a hot button issue. Guns are scary tools. Guns should be
scary tools. Guns are specifically designed to kill as efficiently as
possible.
The concern about irrevocably taking a human life is very valid. At least
in
theory, the gun control issue, however, should have been settled in 1789,
when
the Bill of Rights was passed.
Although the Second Amendment is quoted often enough in this debate, it is
likely that this essay will burst into flames if it is not quoted again
herein:
"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."
In this argument, the definition of militia becomes vital. In researching
the issue, note that many politicians of the day, including Richard Henry
Lee,
George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, defined militia as any
able
bodied man over the age of 17. They make it very clear that they did not
mean
professional soldiers. Even the Constitution of the Commonwealth of
Virginia
makes note of this:
"That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained
to
arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore,
the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that
standing
armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and
that
in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and
governed
by, the civil power."
-- Article 1, Section 13.
The people of the United States were
afraid
of a standing army at the command of a legitimate authority. Their very
own
legal, legitimate government had just used a powerful and well-trained
standing
army to enforce the tax code and use their barns. (Contrary to popular
belief,
the Third Amendment forbidding the forced quartering of military personnel
in
peacetime came about not because too many farmersi daughters were raped by
British soldiers, but because when Bossy was disturbed in the barn by
soldiers
sleeping there, she didnit give so much milk). We won by an Irish miracle
and
General Lafayette.
After the dust settled and our founding fathers were trying to decide on a
form of government, nearly all agreed that it would be a good idea for the
population to keep its high-tech weapons in case another dictator got too
big
for his britches. High-tech weapons? Yes. The Colonists won their freedom
at
least in part because they were better armed than the British. One of the
major
industries of the Colonies, and later the United States, was the
manufacture of
guns. The people of the colonies could afford better weapons individually
than
the British Crown could afford for its soldiers.
The right to bear arms was meant as a limitation on government abuses of
power by a people who had been through such abuses. The right to bear arms
was
not intended to help settlers hunt n that men would hunt for food was taken
as
a given. It was not intended to protect the homes of the settlers. It was
intended to put a stranglehold on the workings of the government.
So, how did the United States, a people afraid of the potential abuses of
government, come to accept, and even demand, laws restricting the ownership
of
guns?
The simple answer is fear. Ironically, most gun control
legislation was enacted as an attempt to try to correct problems
caused by other prohibitive legislation. The classic example
of this was, of course, the Eighteenth Amendment which prohibited
the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the United States. This
legislation had the side effect of an extraordinary rise in the
murder rate, as well as problems with theft. People were quite
reasonably afraid of gangsters and their tommy guns. However,
these gangsters were already breaking laws.