The debate over gun control has dominated news cycles in the U.S. for the past several months, as evidenced by the incendiary discussion in our own publication. This, however, brings up the larger issue of mediating between our ideological roots and our contemporary political present.
Famed political philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr once argued that the ironic nature of American history was in our tendency to compromise the very ideals that we strive to protect. To me, many of the countermeasures proposed by some legislators are guilty of this fallacy.
Various gun lobbyists and deregulation advocates, most notably the National Rifle Association, have proposed initiatives that would deal with this issue by further promoting the usage of guns in public settings, such as arming teachers or school officials.
The original purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure the “security of a free state,” after having revolted from tyrannical political rule. This meaning has evolved though, with recent rulings by the Supreme Court in Heller v. District of Columbia, to assert an individual’s right to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense within one’s home, as well as in other lawful circumstances.
It baffles me, however, that many believe that the deregulation of military-grade weaponry could be perceived as in the best interest of the “security of a free state.”
This escalation of arms approach is reminiscent of the one taken by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, during which these two dueling nations felt the only way to protect themselves was to out-gun the other. This is the very same approach that caused an entire generation to be trained in the art of “duck and cover” by the infamous Bert the Turtle.
We fought the threat of nuclear weapons with the threat of nuclear weapons. Now we’re attempting to fight military-grade weapons with military-grade weapons. If our fear of one another is so strong that we must resort to such barbaric tactics, perhaps civil society is merely a temporary façade to hide us from our own human nature.
Fear cannot be the guiding principle to our political choices, as it was during the Cold War. It has led us to the escalation of arms before, but it cannot lead us once again. Otherwise we may not survive the results.
In seeking to protect our “right to bear arms,” we have missed its exact intended purpose, as outlined by our founding fathers. By liberalizing our interpretation of the “arms” mentioned in the Second Amendment we put at risk every citizen in our society. Show me a scenario in which an automatic weapon made specifically for military combat is necessary for lawful self-defense and I’ll show you a scene from a lousy Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
The debate over whether guns kill people or people kill people also drastically misses the mark. One without question enables the other. It is true that a hammer could be used for the same murderous means, as could a butter knife or even a Tickle-Me-Elmo doll.
The fundamental difference is that those items have a specific primary purpose that is not murderous. Therefore I don’t feel the slightest bit of vexation in advocating a ban on military-grade weaponry for civilians, but not a ban on the release of the new Sesame Street action figures.
Those that argue that the recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and other schools have been politicized to push for gun regulation are correct. That is not, however, a condemnation of the proposed remedies, but rather of our system that relies too heavily on archaic practices and principles that do not account for the constant change of time and certainly not for the unprecedented growth of technology over the past century.
We shouldn’t implement increased gun regulations because of Sandy Hook or any other shooting, but rather because the guns that were involved with them should never have been allowed in the first place. This issue may have been spearheaded by political momentum, but that does not mean that its remedies are not objectively the correct path to pursue.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not holy doctrines and the founding fathers were not infallible foreseers with boundless insight. Just as we are, they were bound by the restrictions of context and time.
For this reason, we must adapt. We must critically analyze our institutions, including our socially imbedded interpretations of civil rights, to ensure that our political actions are indeed moral and just. Gun control is but one of a plethora of issues to be addressed. To escape the cycle of allowing our virtues to be turned to vices, we must be open to change, guided by our founding principles, but ultimately shaped by our political present.