Tompkins Weekly

Guest Opinion: The Second Amendment, and Freedom from Gun Violence



by Conrad Alan Istock

 

U. S. Constitutional Amendment II, Right to Bear Arms
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the securit of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This Constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” has been a motivating argument used by leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and many others, to maintain assault handgun and assault rifle possession in the United States. Today we face rising voices on many sides of the current debate over gun control, along with enormous individual and mass killings with guns. Hence, it is instructive to consider the motivation, and knowledge about guns, that our Founding Fathers had when they wrote and adopted the Second Amendment. They had two major fears.

First fear: Another country might invade the U.S., and the army of the revolution had not been maintained. This fear became real with the war of 1812, and that was a close call. Militias came out, and more troops had to be organized to fight invading British forces. Washington D.C. was attacked, and burned, by the British before they were repelled in 1814.

Second fear: A despotic American leader might use a new force to seize control of the Country, or parts thereof, and destroy freedoms essential to democracy. Armed militias were meant to prevent such attempts.

Next, we must ask: What were the “arms” known to the Founding Fathers at the writing and passage of the Second Amendment? They were single-shot muskets, single-shot pistols, swords, bows and arrows, and knives. Thus, the Second Amendment adopted in 1791 only established the right to have single-shot muskets and single-shot pistols.

Even during the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), more than half a century later, all guns were single-shot, and that war still required the “well regulated militias,” and newly formed larger armies. Later the Colt Single Action Peacemaker, M1873, and Colt .45 single action revolver were created in 1872 and manufactured from 1873 to 1891. Other Colt revolvers were manufactured until 1941 and used in the First World War.

Our Country did not have large standing armies until the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Today, our military presence has ballooned to 750 military bases in more than a hundred other countries, plus 4,249 bases inside the U.S (Dept. of Defense, Base Structure Report, 2010), and millions of personnel.

Given the amazing, recent development of handheld automatic weapons, large magazines, and the size of our standing military, it is clear that the Second Amendment, and well regulated militias, are now merely interesting bits of history! Use of the Second Amendment to justify our Country’s current proliferation of powerful assault guns is a distortion of American history. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms” can still apply to hunting and sport guns, but the Second Amendment no longer entitles ordinary, non-military citizens to have high-powered assault weapons.

There may be a direct connection between rising enthusiasm for guns, and greatly expanding militarism worldwide since World War II. Indeed, I think there is an inescapable connection between our larger recent wars from Korea to Vietnam, to Nicaragua, to Iraq and Kuwait, to Bosnia, to Serbia and Kosovo, to Afghanistan, to Iraq again, as well as furious combat in other countries, e.g., Syria, Ukraine. Shockingly, the NRA has started programs to encourage young children to enjoy guns and shooting, and all recent mass shooters have been young people. While, in contrast, a clear majority of Americans support stronger gun control legislation.
The fact that Congress allowed expiration, in 2004, of the Clinton Administration’s 1994 assault-weapons ban is also proof of altered mindsets in many of us. In subliminal ways, many of us simply accept or do not notice, that almost 100,000 civilian Americans die from guns every year. Others are addicted to possession of semi-automatic guns and will protest efforts to ban them, as we saw recently in Albany, NY, when thousands gathered to protest the NY SAFE Act passed by the New York Legislature.

What can be done? Can anything be done? I hope so.

Any elected official (local, state or national) who votes against gun regulations should realize that he or she is every bit a guilty accomplice whenever an innocent person is attacked with a privately owned gun, and especially when a mass shooting occurs.

Here is a comprehensive Federal gun law that must be passed by the U.S. Congress.
1. Ownership of assault rifles, assault pistols, bump stocks, and large magazines is completely illegal. All such weapons must be turned in to police departments at risk of prosecution. (Federal or State monetary compensation for expensive weapons will be provided.)

2. Serial numbers for all other owned guns, including hunting and sport ones, must be recorded by police, or at the time of purchase. No guns may be purchased at gun shows or online.

3. Strict, expanded background checks must be made for purchasers of guns in stores, including immediate checks to determine if a purchaser is on the Federal Watch, or NoFly, Lists. Actual receipt of a purchased gun can only come after a ten day wait period.

4. All rules and rights for people to carry guns in public settings must be revoked immediately.

Am I hopeful about all these recommendations? I don’t know.

I wrote my first draft of this column after the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Later when I wrote my recently published novel; “Fourteenth Ward Community Saga: Reality, Hope, and Dreams,” I was compelled to depict how that wonderful U.S. Community was forced to protect against recent gun assaults in their own Community. They used professional training of selected gun-carrying citizens to protect all their public gatherings. It subsequently saved lives of their citizens during several terrible attacks. Could this be the only Reality we have left? I hope not.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has become a powerful political organization. They have donated many millions of dollars to recent political campaigns, including 30.3 million to Donald Trump’s run for President last year. The NRA’s use of the Second Amendment as the major justification for all American gun ownership is in no way meaningful.

To see the incredible list of school shootings in the U.S. over the last full century, from 1880 visit: wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States.
Conrad Istock can be reached at cai4@cornell.edu.

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