| abstract
| - The central debate of American gun politics revolves around how to interpret the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It reads as follows: On its face, this seems simple enough. A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a state? Sure. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed? That's as simple as it gets. The problem comes from the ambiguity of these statements in combination; did the Founders primarily intend to guarantee a militia, the unrestricted right to bear arms, or both? Since the guiding principle of American constitutional law whenever possible is "what did the Founders intend?", this simple sentence has created one of the more contentious issues of American politics. It boils down to two basic camps: pro-gun and anti-gun. The pro-gun lobby, which is represented by the NRA and other organizations, believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms; that is, that the "well-regulated Militia" clause of the Second Amendment is purely explanatory (and/or that the meaning of "well-regulated" has shifted over time; in the late 1700s, "well-regulated" meant "well-equipped") and the government has no right to disarm the people. They support their position with the arguments that an armed citizenry reduces the incidence of violent crime and allows citizens the opportunity for self-defense, that individuals using firearms illegally are criminals, and that most new gun control laws tend to get in the way of lawful uses of firearms. Arguments are also made that some of the Founding Fathers were distrustful of government (which is Truth in Television), which is then used to claim that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to guarantee an armed uprising would be possible in the face of a government with Zero-Percent Approval Rating. Because the Constitution already provides for a national army and navy without the Bill of Rights, the militia clause is most often interpreted to refer to the people themselves rather than a government-organized and -armed force. The anti-gun lobby believes that, unlike the rest of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment guarantees a collective right; in other words, that the amendment isn't concerned with individual ownership of weapons, but seeks merely to ensure the presence of an armed militia among the American citizenry in a time when, due to the young nation's underdeveloped transportation system, the regular army would not have been able to reach every place in the country that might come under invasion (i.e. by the British). They then argue that since the government now maintains a large and indisputably well-armed standing military, there is no need for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to run around with an AK-47. They support their position with the arguments that an armed citizenry increases the incidence of violent crime and allows citizens the opportunity for gun violence, and that most individuals using firearms are criminals. They support their position by arguing that there is nothing "well-regulated" about an armed population. The disagreement then becomes about how to measure "well-regulated" or why a single piece of the bill of rights guarantees a collective right, while the rest guarantees individual rights. Then there are those who point out that the United States has no authority to maintain a standing army, but that's another matter. (Besides, the government kind of went ahead and invented one anyway. As they used to say in Sparta, "If you can get away with it, it's legal.") The concept of a citizen militia dates back to 12th century English common law, and its requirement that royal subjects keep and bear arms for military duty. King Henry II, in the Assize of Arms, obligated all freemen to bear arms for public defense. King Henry III required men between the ages of fifteen and fifty (including non-land owning subjects) to bear arms. The reason was that in the absence of a regular army and police force, it was the duty of citizen militias to keep watch and ward at night to capture and confront suspicious persons. As of June 26, 2008, the United States Supreme Court found that an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense exists within the Second Amendment, in the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller. The chances of this solving the general argument are about nil. On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that the right to bear arms is incorporated against the states, meaning that states (and, by extension, local governments, which were created by the states) cannot ban guns outright. However, Justice Alito's majority opinion clearly leaves leeway for other kinds of regulation, like bans on certain kinds of guns, age restrictions, bans on selling guns to convicted felons and the insane, other "reasonable" limitations, and the background checks and waiting periods necessary to enforce these regulations. Naturally, even this does not satisfy some parts of the gun-rights base, who are now launching challenges to these regulations. Since the District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago decisions don't explicitly specify which restrictions are acceptable, it's anybody's guess how these challenges will turn out. There is lot of barking. The tropiness of it: The two sides are of different cultures.
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