It’s Independence Day here in the United States of America and what better way to celebrate by exercising my first amendment right to freedom of speech. Today I’ll be taking up that right to write about the Second Amendment.

In the past I’ve hesitated to be very vocal in public situations about the subject. In the first place, it’s difficult to talk politics without getting off on tangent after tangent. All these subjects are inter-related. Secondly, supportive of the Second Amendment is tantamount to aligning with right wing conservatives. I’d like to say I have a centrist view, but I lean towards the left. Still it’s frustrating to see that few liberal causes have spoken up in favor of the Second Amendment, perhaps because it is not popular. As the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, so today I’m going to speak my peace. It’s unlikely that I’ll change any minds, but I invite you to have an open mind. Maybe my words will spark others to be vocal and one day it will be discovered that there are more people in favor of upholding the Second Amendment than the media would have us believe.

This last Wednesday the Supreme Court made a landmark decision in the case of McDonald v. Chicago reversing Chicago’s long standing ban on handguns. I’d like to applaud the Supreme Court in this decision, except that four of nine justices did not agree with the decision. That’s a little too close for comfort. Does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual’s right to bear arms? There should be little doubt what the founding father’s intended.

In the initial draft of the 2nd Amendment, James Madison wrote:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.

Second revision:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.

Final wording:

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.

This is something writer’s do when editing. They edit out superfluous information in an effort to be succinct. Had James Madison and the First United States Congress seen how this might be interpreted over two hundred years later, I think they might have been more explicit. You’ll also notice that in the second revision that the words “security of a free country” were changed to “security of a free State”, with State being capitalized, meaning that the two are synonymous. Elsewhere in the Constitution where individual states are concerned, the plural is always used.

In a 1776 draft of the Virginia Constitution, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following:

What country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.

In 1824 Jefferson wrote further to John Cartwright:

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

For further evidence, take a look at the essay by Prof. Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, titled The Amazing Vanishing Second Amendment.

It may surprise my readers that I haven’t always been in favor of private ownership of firearms. If you could wave a wand and all guns everywhere were gone, that might be seem great. At one point I was naïve enough to believe this was possible. It wasn’t until I began to do some independent research on the subject that I began to see the other side of the debate.

Eliminating guns, even if it were possible, is not going to eliminate violence. Humankind has a history of violence. Murder, rape, assault, and theft are all things that have occurred throughout time and for centuries before gunpowder was first used in the China during the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD). Perhaps it only seems more prevalent now with the instant nature of news. Furthermore, strict gun laws have not been successful in reducing gun crime. If someone has it set in their mind to break a law and commit a crime, why would they bother to acquire a firearm legally rather than illegally? If a person legally owns a firearm for the purpose of sport or self defense, are they more likely to go out and commit crimes or be violent? Is a person trained in martial arts, which is can be a sport and method of self defense, more prone to outbursts of violence than someone who is not?

Part of what perpetuates the negative stereotype of firearms are some of the more outspoken gun owners who are not necessarily diplomatic in their support of the Second Amendment. There’s a popular view that gun owners are hot headed, camouflage wearing, Nascar watching, buffoons with a penchant for killing furry animals fueled by their bloodlust. Back in March, John Pierce wrote a great piece on how a small, but vocal, number of gun owners are hurting their cause with their negative sentiments. If these folks could settle down a little, it might lessen the negative association of firearms.

Let me make no mistake here; this is hard for me to write about. I know my opinions are not popular because I have many friends, family, and acquaintances that are accustomed to life in the city and have no experience with firearms. All they think they know is that firearms are dangerous and don’t have any place in a peaceful society. I do not enjoy alienating myself as a gun loving freedom fighter, but I feel it is necessary to say something. Edmund Burke, and Englishman who supported the independence of Americans as early as 1775, is credited with coining one of my favorite quotes:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

And so I feel the need to speak up. Another aspect that makes sometimes makes supporting the Second Amendment difficult for me is the dichotomy of pacifism and self-defense. I’ve admired the work of pacifists and nonviolence advocates such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. It’s a personal question that everyone must ask themselves. Given a situation where death from an armed assailant were imminent, would you choose to be armed and have a fighting chance or to stand firm and accept what happens? The problem with nonviolent resistance is that it has to be all or nothing. Gandhi offered on the subject of Germany attempting to invade the British Isles in 194o:

I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions…If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.

You will allow yourselves to be slaughtered, but will refuse to owe allegiance to them? That is something I have a hard time supporting, no matter how great the moral high ground of nonviolence resistance may be.

Back to the issue at hand, McDonald V. Chicago. Second Amendment supporters got the result they wanted, but Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had a backup plan ready to go with a laundry list of new ordinances making it difficult for law abiding citizens to bear arms, but no more difficult for criminals to do the same. The provisions for a Chicago Firearms Permit (CFP) require that an applicant must have one hour of range training and four hours of classroom training, and yet firearm ranges (and gun stores) are banned in Chicago except for police use. One firearm can be registered per month, but only one working firearm can be on the premises at a time. Further, a CFP card will come with a registration fee of $100 and need to be renewed every three years. By contrast, Illinois Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card is good for ten years and costs a mere ten dollars. This fact alone makes Chicago’s efforts at reasonable gun control seem unreasonable. Even more troubling is that the city council passed these ordinances with a vote of 45-0.

So what can you do to further support the Second Amendment? Share your education with others in a rational conversation. Don’t have much of an education on the matter? Check out the Revolutionary War Veterans Association (http://appleseedinfo.org/). Obviously there are no living veterans of the revolutionary war, so the RWVA is committed to history and the preservation of the American the founding father’s intended. To that end they put on Appleseed shooting events that instruct participants in traditional rifle marksmanship along with a good dose of American history.

In any state, write to your Congresspersons and tell them you support the Second Amendment and oppose legislation the hinders the right to bear arms. You can find your Congressperson at the U.S. House of Representatives and your state senators at the US Senate.

In Chicago, write to your Alderman and tell them you are outraged at the city council’s 45-0 approval of Mayor Daley’s ordinances.

This weekend is a time for celebrating our freedom. Although I take exception with some actions by the government and politicians throughout our history as a nation, I can still acknowledge that we have many more freedoms and opportunities than much of the world. Rights are like muscles: they must be exercised or they will atrophy. Exercise your today.

Additional resources: gunfacts.info

Filed under: General by John