Heavy Weapons

Early Friday morning, July 21st, an almost unbelievable act of evil was suffered by mid-night movie goers in Aurora Colorado.   To label the murder of 12 and injury of 58 as anything less than a heinous act of massacre and individual terrorism would be irresponsible and heartless.  Predictably, because guns were used to commit this evil, questions are raised about private ownership of weapons by American citizens.   I suppose the questions are legitimate but what do they bring us?  It always comes down to parsing the wording and intent of the 2nd amendment by the constitutional framers.   When the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” were penned in the Declaration of Independence they carried with them the great weight and wisdom of recognition from whom rights come and that those rights should not be infringed (in America) by mere men.  From the grievances outlined in the Declaration, our constitution was constructed. The framers set out to create a constitution that would establish these rights as the bedrock foundation of American governance and serve to guide future elected officials in governing at the consent of the governed while placing stringent limits on their power.  I explore each phrase of this statement from the Declaration of Independence here:  https://2ifbyc.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/protecting-life-living-free-and-pursuit-of-happiness-are-over-rated-throwbacks-to-colonial-america/

Regarding the 2nd amendment; what relationship might it have with inalienable rights?

It seems clear that both the rights and their inalienability provided the urgency and drove the exactness of the wording of stringent governmental limitations which the Bill of Rights outlines. Rights are not the same as privileges.  Privileges are granted by men who are duly elected into, or who seize  by force, authority over other men and, as such revocable by other or the same men. Rights are God-given, and legally, irrevocable. Bearing arms is only a right because armed citizens can exert deadly force, if necessary, to protect their own or another persons life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.   We exercise our rights, like a muscle and they strengthen and, because they are rights, they carry a great burden of personal responsibility that we exercise them properly; they do not give us license to infringe on those of others in exercise of our own.  Privileges can be earned, revoked, abused, capriciously given and are a form of reward.

The debate over private possession of weapons is not new. Well before the discovery of gun powder it has been at the center of the tension between government and the governed.Each horrific event involving a murderer and the use of weapons rekindles the debate over armed citizens and, what is an appropriate or socially acceptable level of private citizen armament. The 2nd amendment was among the first 10 added shortly after the ratification of our constitution.  The drafting of the Bill of Rights was initiated at the behest of and out of concern by Thomas Jefferson, that the constitution, as ratified, failed to definitively address specific rights and protections for citizens against governmental intrusion and over-reach. After the States held their constitutional conventions, the first 10 amendments (which became the Bill Of Rights) were specifically and very closely written to further restrict federal powers under the Constitution.   The purpose, as stated in the proposal to congress, was “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, (and to add)  further declaratory and restrictive clauses ”   The right to bear arms was not designed solely to give a “well regulated militia” the wherewithal to resist an invading aggressor or oust an overbearing federal government but equally, to afford individual citizens a perpetually protected, powerful means to protect his own life, pursuit of happiness and liberty.

Many argue that the framers would be appalled at the advancement of lethality in individual arms and weaponry, and would seek to legislatively limit their availability to regular citizens; I disagree.   The single shot weapons of the time, if possessed by common men, gave them rough parity with the foot soldier of a “professional” army of the day. The cannons, warships, arsenals and manufacturing of mechanized weapons and more devastating engines of war were not only too expensive for the average citizen but were also too big and bulky for ease of practice or hauling about. I believe the framers would see most any shoulder fired weapon, of roughly equal lethality and firepower to that of a well armed infantryman, as fair game for possession by citizens. Altho I have no desire to own a fully automatic weapon or a grenade launcher for my home defense, I don’t object to them being in private ownership.

Hunting is often offered as a “reasonable” test or benchmark for defining the acceptability of privately owned weaponry.  Since every state has different laws on what is and what is not a legal hunting weapon, using the hunting argument opens up an unbelievably arbitrary and capricious method subject to unlimited interpretation.

Inevitably, the heavy weight rigidity of the NRA finds its way into the teeth of this argument. Altho I am not a member, I see the hardline defense of the 2nd amendment, by the NRA, as a necessary counterbalance to the relentless efforts by many to parse the amendment and slowly but very surely remove all weapons from the hands of regular citizens.The number of oppressive and unnecessarily restrictive gun, knife and other hand or shoulder operated weapons possession laws across America is clear evidence of the marching trend toward greater and greater control of guns (weapons), of all sorts.

Those who think like me often call discussions calling for more restrictive gun laws, at the federal level, “slippery slope” legislative actions.  Those who argue from the other side of the fight typically disdain “slippery slope” arguments dismissing them as mere red herrings, used by the simple to avoid application of rational thought. A thought process which makes it simple, but dangerous, to dismiss them as irrelevant.   Dismissing these arguments as irrelevant represents a line of thinking which believes men are capable to reign in or steadfastly act nobly despite their hunger for power (benevolent dictatorships) and desire to control other men (for the safety and protection of those men). John Hay said famously in 1872 “The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.” Another, from Daniel Webster in 1842 (an early conservative and staunch elitist) about the nature of those who govern: “There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters”. And, one more set which may define our divergent views, from Aristotle and Plato: From Aristotle, and descriptive of my viewpoint: “Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms” And from Plato, altho Plato would not be supportive of my view-point, his statement emboldens it; here it is: “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector”

Ultimately, thinking people will either come to agree with Plato’s belief that tyranny is a noble and necessary element of effective governance and that those governed need the strong hand of the state to guide them or, they will gravitate in Aristotle’s direction believing that best governance is found where the government genuinely serves the governed and protects broad freedoms with minimal oversight or intrusion. The U.S. constitution is among the finest examples of an attempt to compel governing bodies to act in tightly restricted roles which, I believe, aligns closely with Aristotle’s philosophy.

This argument will continue to rage and we will likely see more restrictions on gun sales. They will sound reasonable, they will claim to only affect those weapons “more appropriate” to possession and use by the military and police forces and, they will increase the angle and slipperiness of the slope to an eventually disarmed citizenry.

I’ll close with this quotation from Mahatma Gandhi “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms,as the blackest.”

Think about it.