How Do We Get Ourselves Out of This Mess?
Part 2: Thanks, James Madison, for making the 2nd Amendment so hard to interpret
The argument against strict gun laws rests on a broad interpretation of the rather vague 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.
The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which, according to author Korie Beth Brown, “became a symbol of the American experiment; combined, the ten statutes have achieved a sacred status and are deemed untouchable.” These amendments to the Constitution were generally put in place to keep the federal government from overstepping its boundaries on states’ and individuals’ rights, which is why the United States was founded in the first place.
The wording in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is annoyingly but intentionally hazy. The Founding Fathers could not have predicted, for example, that shootings would become so commonplace that the news would have a hard time keeping up with them.
The Supreme Court has been tasked through the years with interpreting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights through certain cases. In between those cases, U.S. citizens take it upon themselves to determine what the Founding Fathers wrote and how it relates to current times. And since the First Amendment guarantees us the right to free speech, interpretations of the Second Amendment are vast and are widely shared.
(By the way, this is a really in-depth look at the Second Amendment and its impact today.)
In broad terms, one argument is that the “right to bear arms” means just that; you are free to own guns without the government intervening. The other argument focuses on the phrase “well-regulated militia,” insisting that the Founders had no intention of granting any gun of any type to just about anybody.
Rational minds should be able to convene in the middle and come out with a logical plan. Does the government want to take all of your guns, as some Second Amendment defenders insist? Likely not, since citizens can and should have the right to use guns for hunting and protection, and there will always be gun enthusiasts who enjoy displaying and safely using their weapons. Are gun rights advocates okay with violent crime, as long as it protects their ability to own a gun? We can safely bet that the answer is no.
So why can’t the government, and the country in general, meet halfway and establish 1.) what a modern interpretation of the Second Amendment should be and 2.) sensible laws to ensure rights while also keeping guns away from those who intend harm?
That’s another complicated mess that we’ll try to tackle in part 3 of this series.
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