Regarding the Supreme Court’s Ruling on the 2nd Amendment
Personally, I am squarely in the middle on this issue. I was raised around responsible and rational firearms ownership and use. I spent 6 years in the military and have had significant training in their use, safety and security. I also acknowledge that the ‘every citizen’ standard for gun ownership is laughable. But the problem is not in the constitution, it is in our unwillingness to clarify and modernize it.
On the front page of the New York Times for 26 June 2008, Justice Stevens is quoted as saying that “over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials …” Well, yes they did. And my entire life, I have lived, along with every other American, while the ambiguity of the 2nd amendment has stood.
Don’t like it? Fix it. If the US does not want the current 2nd amendment, then let’s modernize it and restate the rights.
The 2nd amendment must be one of the most awkwardly worded statements in the US Constitution. I have little doubt that at the time it was written, that the authors actually did mean ‘every citizen’ could and should own a weapon. It was the norm in their society and they could not, or did not visualize a future where gun ownership would be a problem. In every known militia record of 18th Century America, the militia’s guns were kept at home and owned by individuals, not a body politic.
So now the Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd amendment actually means what it (awkwardly) says. And we also live in a world where we are quite aware that allowing every citizen to own a gun is probably not a very good idea. Guns need to be regulated. Gun safety training needs to be regulated at least to the level of automobile licensing, and I would advocate far beyond that level. Anyone who owns a gun should have to requalify with a written test, a firing range test, and a brief police interview every 2 years or so. The cost of this should be born by the gun owners, not the tax payers.
But people who wish to abolish gun ownership in the USA need to step back and realize that it is unlikely to happen in their lifetimes. The body politic in the USA has proven many times that we are against absolute prohibition of gun ownership by law abiding responsible citizens. So we should focus on regulations that make guns safer, not prohibition.
— G Righter, San Francisco, CA
