A Well Regulated Militia

Why is it so important to such an overwhelmingly large portion of U.S. citizens to “Bear Arms”? Why do we feel safer with a gun in our house? What is it that we believe we achieve by owning them? We know that, in “the wrong hands” they can, and will be used to murder on a massive scale. So, what makes OUR hands so right? Where do we draw that line? 

    There’s been a lot of discussion about these questions lately as the frequency and severity of civilian gun violence has increased at an alarming rate. Many politicians, mostly on the left, have been calling for changes in the U.S.’s policy on gun purchasing and ownership. But they have been met with such strong opposition, so consistently, that no reforms have even come close to being passed. The reasons for this are fairly evident, but we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s get to know a little about how we’ve gotten to our unique position as the country with the highest and most fatal rates of civilian gun violence in the entire world.

     The history of gun control laws in the United States is actually a pretty quick lesson to go over. So obviously, we can begin with the beginning, the birth of the United States Constitution in 1791, including the crowd favorite Second Amendment. 

“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.”

During this period in our country’s history, it was very important to all of us that we could defend ourselves and our families when called upon to do so, be it by our newly formed, and objectively fragile federal and state governments, or as a response to the dangers that lurked around every corner in our vast and mysterious, recently acquired landscape. The next time we hear about gun policy isn’t until nearly a hundred years later, after the most important change our government has ever made: the emancipation of the slaves, marking the first time our country blushed and realized it too can make horrifying, irredeemable mistakes. In 1865 many southern states responded to the freeing of the slaves by displaying their full, unwavering capacity for hate and fear by enacting “black codes” which forbid any black person from possessing firearms. Soon after, in 1871, the National Rifle Association or N.R.A. was formed with the purpose of preparing our civilians for war by improving their marksmanship. Yup, that’s it, no other agenda, pretty good idea at the time, really. Though, I’ll warn you now, they may come up again, with some slight philosophy changes… In 1927 congress realizes it’s probably not a bad idea to ban the mailing of concealable weapons. When 1934 rolls around, the Mafia had become a big problem for law enforcement and their frequent use of ‘Tommy guns’ brought about the very first federal gun control law: The New Deal for Crime. This levied a two hundred dollar tax on the manufacture and sale of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. In 1938, the National Firearms Act prohibits the sale of firearms to any criminals, convicted or accused. Thirty years later, in 1968, after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the aptly named ‘Gun Control Act’ and the more long-winded ‘Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act’ are established, together prohibiting the sale of guns to felons, drug users, the mentally ill, raising the purchasing age to twenty one, as well as requiring vendors to keep, ever so slightly more detailed records of their sales. 1972 brings us the formation of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Commission (A.T.F.) and thus the issuing of gun licenses begins. In 1986 we start to see the influence that our civilian marksmanship teachers  (the N.R.A.) have developed with the creation of the ‘Firearm Owners Protection Act.” This protects our rights as proud gun-toting Americans by forbidding the federal government from establishing a national registry of gun owners, while also limiting the A.T.F.’s gun dealer inspections to only once a year and follow up inspections only for multiple violations. Displaying their irrefutably benevolent capacity for compromise, civilian ownership of machine guns made after 1986 was also banned in this act. In 1993 the ‘Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act’ is passed allowing the FBI to make background checks for buyers before a sale. But don’t worry, this is definitely NOT a registry of gun owners. This is followed closely by the 1994  ‘Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act’ tentatively setting a federal ban on the manufacture of assault rifles, sort of… for a bit. The ‘Tiahrt Amendment’, which prohibits law enforcement from releasing information regarding where criminals purchased the guns they used in crimes is enacted in 2003. In 2004 that thing about assault rifles from 1994 gets thrown out, so we can go ahead and make those again. 2005 brings us the ‘Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act’ ensuring that gun manufacturers cannot be held responsible for what folks end up doing with their products. And finally in 2008 ‘The Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller” solidifies an individual’s right to possess firearms in order to defend our homes. But that’s pretty much it.  And if the N.R.A. has anything to say about it, (and they do,) the background checks from 1993 will be the last time the Second Amendment gets messed with. But… why is that? What makes this such a particularly difficult amendment to change, even in light of what is becoming a tradition of mass shootings in America? We change our thoughts and policies on other laws all the time. But what makes this one so special?

     In order to take a closer look at the second Amendment to our famously well constructed Constitution and Bill of Rights, perhaps we should take a look at its brother, Amendment III. As we all know, (right?) the third amendment states:

    

     “No soldier shall, in times of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in times of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

     The quartering of soldiers was of particular importance to the English. The ‘totally unfair’ parents of our teenaged nation, and former overlords from across the pond, who, because of various dubious experiences from their own infamously illustrious tenure, were strongly opposed to the concept of a government maintaining a ‘standing army.’ The British solution to this taboo was to sprinkle their guys with guns, in uniforms, among the general populace. In proper English fashion, they politely requested that folks graciously allow small groups of these armed, well-dressed blokes to take up residence in their homes. This way, there was not one large building housing a complete squadron of military personnel, (which would constitute a standing army,) but rather a loosely scattered collection of alarmingly well-prepared gentlemen. While perhaps a possible solution to our current gun control debate, (Eh? Think about it, we wouldn’t need guns to protect ourselves if there were a well-trained, even-tempered Brit in our kitchen,) Americans were not keen on even that compromise. Thus, The Third Amendment was born.

     As the U.S. matured and began to grow into the self-reliant, (self-obsessed?) nation we are today, the concept of being the proprietor of a military ‘B&B’ faded from our collective national consciousness. We spread our borders so wide that they eventually reached “from sea to shining sea,” equipped with a sturdy pair of cheap-labor trousers and a maple-flavored, beaver pelt hat. In every state we established a carefully constructed and incorruptible judicial system and a trustworthy, unbiased, police force (note to self: check for accuracy). We became so confident as a country that we even found ourselves getting involved in the quarrels of other countries, sending our casually seated army (don’t worry England,) around the world to meddle in their affairs.

With our motivations and overall demeanor having developed into an entirely different entity than it was when the Constitution and these early Amendments were established, it comes as no surprise that some of the issues that we felt so strongly about began to feel outdated. If we have lost interest in our concern about the quartering of soldiers, then perhaps there might be other Amendments we ought to take a look at.

Maybe the first one? No, that seems to check out, basically just the right to party and complain.

How about the Fourth Amendment?

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Or, in other words, as the English like to put it:

“Every man’s house is his castle.”

Although, I suppose that also sounds like support for Florida’s “Stand-your-Ground” laws, (which legally justify the use of firearms on one’s own property, even if it leads to death;) the British, and our Founding Fathers were thinking more about the government, (not your unlucky, prankster cousin.) The idea behind the Fourth Amendment is to protect our right to the privacy of our personal property against the government’s prying eyes. It describes the necessity for ‘probable cause’ to be determined before any government organization’s inspection of our bodies while in public, our legally procured property, and even our private documents. What “probable cause” actually means gets a bit dense and murky, and is subject to change based on the given circumstances, but the Amendment itself seems very clear in it’s wording in regard to the basic procedure. Doesn’t it? Well apparently, over the years, even that has become subject to interpretation. For instance, the New York Police Department developed a policy known as “Stop and Frisk.” This policy, based on ‘Terry v. Ohio,’ a Supreme Court ruling from 1968, allowed police officers to perform searches on civilians without pre-determined, court approved, probable cause, under the assumption that this would prevent crimes from being committed.  Under “Stop and Frisk” only “Reasonable Suspicion” is required to perform a search of a suspect. The idea behind the policy was that the process of obtaining a legally sanctioned warrant was hindering law enforcement from identifying criminals who were carrying concealed weapons. They hoped that by giving police officers more freedom to make judgment-calls based on their training and experience, without the lengthy process of proving the necessity for a warrant, violent crime would decrease. While the intention was noble and seemingly justifiable, this is clearly in blatant contradiction with our ‘search and seizure’ rights under the Fourth Amendment. Recently this practice has been brought into question based on the fact that it has been largely ineffectual in actually preventing violent crimes as well as being used more frequently to target black and latino citizens and arresting them for minor drug offenses.

Similarly, you might remember “The Patriot Act” enacted by, then President George W. Bush, after the September 11^th terrorist attack in 2001.  As expressed in an official statement from justice.gov entitled “What is the Patriot Act?” the federal government defends it’s amendment of the Fourth Amendment thusly:

“The Patriot Act updated the law to reflect new technologies and new threats. The Act brought the law up to date with current technology, so we no longer have to fight a digital-age battle with antique weapons-legal authorities leftover from the era of rotary telephones. “

See? Sometimes the world changes and our government policies have to stay updated with those changes. When something horrifying like the events of September 11^th scares us so much that we feel like we are willing to forego our basic constitutional right to privacy, maybe that should alarm us enough to consider other outdated policies and laws that perhaps we should take a look at.  Although, you’d think that the new American tradition of regular mass shootings by members of our ‘well regulated militia’ might cause similar alarm, any mention of our beloved Second Amendment is met with outrage and is immediately shot down and swept under the rug. There is a reason for this, but, well, to be honest, I’m too afraid to mention the name of the organization responsible for this…

Um, yeah, so anyway, (*gulp*), do you remember the whole Edward Snowden/N.S.A. hoopla? Yet again, we have an example of the federal government feeling very comfortable with adjusting our Fourth Amendment rights to suit their needs, this time without even feeling the need to rile up support by playing to our fears. In this case, one very secretive branch of the government (the National Security Agency) made the call, all on it’s own, with a suspiciously unclear amount of oversight, to monitor citizens’ activities. While the N.S.A. very quickly turned the attention back on Snowden, pointing out that some of the information he released may have caused security concerns, it was more of a distraction method. By calling the attention away from what they had been doing to U.S. citizens and blaming Snowden for revealing their unsupervised, unregulated practices, many Americans were too confused to pay attention to what they had been up to anymore. While it is certainly unfortunate that some of the methods the government used to combat terrorism were put out in the open because of Snowden’s revelations, that should not change public opinion about the fact that one of our government agencies had been undermining our constitutional right to privacy. Whether or not our privacy is actually more important than our safety is a matter of some contention and may be another one of the rights that we need to debate in the future. But, again, as it stands now, this is a clear example of how easy it can be to flat out ignore or change one of our original, constitutional rights. So there’s no doubt that the Fourth Amendment is open for interpretation and change.

Many conservative politicians, who regularly defend the second amendment on the basis that our founding fathers were infallible and that we must uphold their values and regard their policies as irrefutable, have recently been bringing up the idea of completely altering our structure for taxation. The U.S. has been using an income based taxation structure since the beginning, but there has been a lot of talk about making the monumental switch to a tax program based, instead, on ‘consumption’. To put it in simpler terms: currently, and throughout our country’s history, the amount of taxes a citizen pays relate to how much money they make. That’s an income based taxation system. What many conservatives have been proposing is changing the way our government collects money from its citizens to a system based on spending. So basically we would no longer pay taxes based on how much money we make, but rather on how much money we spend. Essentially, if you get a big ol’ paycheck every month, the government doesn’t get to touch a cent of it until you buy something; And if you live paycheck to paycheck, spending every dollar you make just to keep up with your basic expenses, you would have to pay taxes to the federal government on every trip to the store or bill you pay. So with a ‘consumption’ based tax system, our poorer citizens would grow poorer and poorer every time they bought anything, and our richest citizens would be more likely to save their money and only buy things when necessary, effectively making those of us with less money pay considerably higher taxes than those of us with more money. Besides the fact that this does not take into account that we are currently experiencing the widest income gap in our country’s history, (so why would we do something to compound that problem, especially now,) it is also completely contradictory to the usual rhetoric that we hear from the very same politicians who generally extol a strict constructionist view. Kind of hypocritical to say that ‘we shouldn’t change our policies because it’s worked so far’ when it comes to things like gay marriage or gun control, but throw the book out the window when we’re talking about taxes, doncha’ think? There are many other examples of our government changing it’s mind or updating it’s beliefs to reflect the popular ideals of the day (Slavery, Prohibition, Jim Crowe laws, etc.) therefore, clearly, the Bill of Rights are not immutable.

     I’ve mentioned how there may be a reason for the persistent stubbornness of the Second Amendment, and while I’m probably putting myself in danger by bringing it up, it’s because of the National Rifle Association. Yeah, those guys, the ones who were teaching us how to aim better so that we could defend ourselves if we were attacked way back in the day. Over the years, since those days that we were worried about attacks from the ‘savage natives’ or whomever else we might have been afraid of, the mission statement of the N.R.A has changed drastically. Since nowadays we’re pretty confident in our safety within the secure borders of our beautiful country, the N.R.A.’s purpose as a civilian training program has become ostensibly obsolete. So instead of going the way of, say, home-soldier-checker-uppers, they made some changes to their agenda. Somehow, this organization has gained untold wealth and immeasurable influence in government.  It has become a well-established fact that the N.R.A. lobbyists have been slipping money into the pockets of politicians who are willing to play nice, for decades. It is in their best interest to prevent any policy changes on gun control because, well, they’re the gun guys. And they’re really good at what they do. Through intimidation, money and influence, the N.R.A. has their paws in every aspect of our political system. Those politicians who choose to play their game, are forever indebted to them due to the constant flow of funding and support that they receive from the powerful organization. After accepting this assistance, (most likely the primary reason for their successful election,) this politician now has no choice but to submit to their generous benefactor’s every whim. Thus, the N.R.A. has ensured that all of it’s positions have enough support to get voted on by a wide majority of elected officials, however they are told to do so. Recently, their lust for power has grown so vast that we have even begun to see evidence of their agenda outside of the United States. In countries such as South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Italy, and most notably in 2005, during an attempt by the Brazilian government to establish new restrictions on gun ownership, due to their own, famously high rates of gun violence. When the National Rifle Association heard about the possibility that Brazil might be enacting tighter restrictions on its citizen’s ability to bear arms, naturally, they sprung into action. They began running advertisements in Brazil proclaiming the importance and benefits of gun ownership and presumably, with even greater ease, buying politicians, in order to ensure their interests are represented just as overwhelmingly as they are at home. The N.R.A.’s fear was that, were gun control regulations passed in a place like Brazil, U.S. citizens might realize that it’s possible to stay safe without our own personal arsenal, and maybe we would fall out of love with our favorite amendment.

But, unfortunately, as far as I can see, we’re basically stuck with them for the foreseeable future… *sigh* So, let’s get back to the real purpose of the Second Amendment: that “ A well regulated Militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State…” Well, I mean, yeah, right, of course… a civilian militia… hmm… Can we think about that for a second? So that would mean a group of your untrained, not necessarily educated, probably politically uninformed, possibly incredibly bigoted neighbors, getting together, arming themselves with guns and taking to the streets… Uhh… Yunno, I’m not sure I like that idea… I mean, I guess that WAS something we needed at a certain point. Like, when there were attacks from natives. Or when there was a criminal on the loose and the police force was stretched too thin to go out and look for him. What we know a civilian militia was used for most often was returning escaped slaves to their masters, because, of course, they were property and belonged to their master; It’s just that, they could escape. So the community would band together to retrieve their neighbor’s expensive tool. So yeah, I see why they needed an armed civilian militia… for that awful reason. But, what would be a modern day equivalent of that? Maybe there isn’t? Perhaps, and I know I’m going out on a limb here, we don’t need a “well regulated Militia” anymore. This concept does not apply to the way our community and political system works anymore. The world has changed and continues to change and we need to change with it.