In my Aug. 26 editorial I said that the issue of gun control was an issue for another editorial. I made that comment shortly after three bored teenagers decided to kill somebody for the thrill of it. So, while driving past a jogger, they shot to death 22-year-old Christopher Lane, a college student from Melbourne, Australia. I asked why a 15-, 16- and 17-year-old would even have access to handguns.
Although at that time no one could have foreseen the Sept. 16 Navy Yard rampage in which an obviously disturbed man shot to death 12 innocent victims, any reasonably alert person would have predicted that another tragedy of this kind was bound to happen sooner or later. Turns out, it was sooner.
Jim White
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But isn’t that a part of the tragedy? We have grown to expect this kind of social insanity every so often. Twelve dead and 58 wounded in Aurora, Colo., 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., 12 in the D.C. Navy Yard. In the past two years at least 77 people have been killed in mass shootings in theaters, schools, malls and houses of worship. And had it not been for the cool heroism of Antoinette Tuff, the Atlanta school bookkeeper who talked a shooter into surrendering on Aug. 21, the toll would, undoubtedly, have been higher.
The whole question of limiting access to firearms is one guaranteed to incite impassioned rhetoric. For some in our day, the question of firearms is linked to their distrust of the government. In the mid-1800s, English philosopher John Stuart Mill contended that the state could not be trusted even to educate the young without implanting its own prejudiced interpretations. In his opinion, beyond requiring that by a certain age children should be taught to read, all education should be the option of parents. In the matter of personal freedoms, Mill said the only limits come at the point of harming others. For these philosophical few, suspicions about the government spring from Mill’s seedlings. For many others, it’s paranoia, pure and simple.
Even those opposed to limits on individual freedoms must acknowledge that to live in the company of fellow human beings is to either voluntarily limit some freedoms or have them curtailed by law for the security of the general public.
I know we shouldn’t assume every person who purchases multiple assault weapons, hundred-round magazines and thousands of rounds of ammo is up to no good, but neither should we assume that every passenger with a sharp object intends to bring down an airliner. But try to get on a plane with a pen knife.
One question I’ve never heard answered to my satisfaction is, “Why in heaven’s name would anybody need an assault weapon with a hundred-round magazine? For hunting? If a hunter needs an automatic rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammo to bring down a deer, he (or she) shouldn’t be allowed in the woods. A hunter with an aim that poor is too dangerous to get a hunting license, much less to purchase an assault rifle!
I’ve heard the argument that people should be allowed to purchase such high-powered weapons and all the ammunition they want because the government might go bad and we would all depend on these weapons to defend ourselves from our own military. “This,” they proclaim, “is the purpose behind the Second Amendment!”
A careful reading of the Second Amendment, however, dispels that notion. When the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, the United States had no standing army. The Continental Army had been disbanded after the Revolutionary War, except for a regiment or two guarding the western frontier and the West Point arsenal. During John Adam’s administration, Alexander Hamilton proposed the organization of a standing army to defend the young Republic from the threat of France, but Congress balked at the idea. The purpose of the Second Amendment was not to protect the citizens from the government, but to provide a citizen’s militia should it be needed to repel attacking enemy forces.
Read the amendment again: “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.”
If the intent had been to guarantee that the citizens had arms adequate to dispel governmental attacks, citizens would now need to possess nuclear warheads, bunker-buster bombs and a hanger full of stealth fighters to put up a reasonable defense. This argument simply makes no sense.
I’ve heard others argue that any limitation on the ownership of guns would simply be the first step on a slippery slope. A ban might start with assault rifles, but before long it would extend to shotguns, then BB guns and finally all guns, period.
This argument is akin to opposing a speed limit of 70 miles per hour because it would soon be reduced to 40, then 20 and finally all driving would be forbidden. Still, who can deny that reaching a reasonable solution to the problem may take several tries before we find one we can live with?
On Sept. 16, Aaron Alexis, a Navy veteran who obtained an honorable discharge (though a lesser, general discharge, was warranted due to behavior issues), used his contractor credentials to get into a restricted area and randomly pointed his shotgun at terrified women and men and shot them dead without hesitation, say witnesses. The fact that he reported to Veteran’s Hospital staff in Rhode Island that he was hearing voices and being attacked by a microwave machine, didn’t keep him from legally purchasing the murder weapon. In point of fact, Alexis tried to buy an assault rifle in Virginia, and could have; but, because he was not a resident, he could not get the weapon immediately. So he bought a shotgun, instead.
I grew up in a home with shotguns and rifles. For my extended family, hunting had been a means of providing meat. Many other families had similar experiences. But we can’t go on hiding our heads in the sands of denial. Something has to be done. Although there is little precedent, I’m afraid, I believe it’s possible for Congress to be reasonable enough to draft sensible and thoughtful legislation that will prevent those who are known to have mental or emotional issues from owning or having access to guns.
It also needs to consider why any citizen would need to own assault weapons; but if a case can legitimately be made, then our legislators should at least make it illegal for these arms to be sold at gun shows and traded at swapshops without a background check. And when people have demonstrated mental instability, some way must be found to keep guns out of their possession. Will we ever be 100 percent effective? Truthfully, probably not. But we are duty-bound to do what we can!
In 1962, Bob Dylan asked, “How many deaths will it take ’till they know that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” Apparently, half-a-century later, it still is.
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.