11 of 30 - Right to Bear Arms

[aggienaut]

"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."

   That, as you may recognize, is the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, popularly believed to grant everyone an individual right to guns.

   Now, I don't have a particular agenda as regards guns, at least not on the traditional perception of one being either entirely against them or entirely for them. I'm not a gun nut, but I have friends who are quite in to their gun collections, and am aware that many other people are as well and would be very upset, indeed live in relative terror at the prospect, of their guns being taken away. And on the other hand, gun violence obviously causes a lot of unfortunate events, to put it mildly. And then there's the whole issue of what is or is not a constitutional right. And it is this latter point I'd like to address. What DOES the Constitution actually say?

   Most people on both sides of the debate have seemed to completely lose sight of one minor detail about their "right to bear arms" -- the Constitution does NOT guarantee individuals the right to bear arms.
   The 2nd Amendment's express purpose is to guarantee a "well regulated militia." So now let's step back from everything else and ask this: does the current firearm policy in any stretch of the imagination resemble a "well regulated militia?"

   I will go so far to propose that it does not.

   Some have put forward that the state national guards fit the requirement of a "well regulated militia." And that may be possible, but it's also true that the founding father's were intensely suspicious of government and clearly intended the amendment to allow citizens to fight the government, their OWN government, if they so desired.
   Which brings up an interesting nuance. Far from banning military grade "assault weapons," such an interpretation would expressly allow them.
   Anyway, clearly there are a lot of fans of guns who adamentally desire to keep personal weapons that are not under the control of the state, and would be, so to speak, up in arms, if they didn't have an option.
   So what if people COULD form "militias" in the form of gun clubs. But the members of any such militia are collectively responsible for the gun related behavior of any individual member. It's then in all member's of the club's interest to make sure no wingnuts are allowed to join their club. And if you're a wingnut you probably won't be allowed to join any gun club. And of course as is currently the case, no felons, mentally unstable, or otherwise dangerous individuals could have firearms even if they could join a club.
   I know, I know, the idea of "armed militias" sounds scary but consider that presently they already exist with no motivation to self regulate.
   And the "right" to bear arms doesn't necessarily need to apply only to militias, remember that which is not forbidden is allowed, so I'd propose there'd of course be allowances for persons of known levels of civic responsibility, honorably discharged veterans, police officers and the like, to own personal firearms -- and this category would happily include all my friends who are gun nuts.

   So that's my compromise interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Either way, to return to my initial point, the current situation in no way resembles a "well regulated militia," and clearly needs to be drastically reformed.

Comments

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Ah no I appreciate your detailed responses.

1. There have been proposals to make gun sellers liable for crimes committed with those guns but that's obviously unworkable because the gun-seller is NOT going to know everyone he does business with very well and that's just an absurd imposition; BUT, this I think is kind of a more workable manner of the same thing. You don't have to convince every random gun seller you're not crazy, but you have to convince the members of a gun club. Because all the members are potentially liable for you, it will be in their interest to really take the time to sit down and talk with you , and I'd imagine clubs will be themed around things like hunting or collecting so the members can really probably easily sort out if you're actually serious about that activity or not.

4. This doesn't fit exactly any one of your points but I want to emphasize that the gun clubs themselves will be "well regulated" of course in a number of ways, and probably have to carry a heavy load of liability insurance.

2. There probably _would_ be some unwholesome seeming gun clubs, but this whole thing is to be regulated by objective standards. So if the "Pro Life Gun Club" wants to form and follows all the objective qualifications than they can form, HOWEVER, the moment any person with a gun makes a threat against someone else's safety, they lose their "right" to have a gun, and if the club on a whole espouses violent rhetoric, it will be very immediately shut down. If they want to do all their violent planning in secret, well, under the current situation they could do that to so that's not a argument against this system. But let's say there's 20 people in this club (I'm don't think clubs of numbers much smaller than that should be allowed to exist), and they're planning something violent, and one of them gets cold feet -- as a member of the club he will be held liable for the actions of the others if they go through with it, so he's gotta now talk them out of it or go tell someone to stop them.

If people within a club decide they want to shoot eachother, well, all the above and usual rules apply to that.

3. I think this really would make it harder for gang members to get guns. What are they going to do, form a gang gun club? That would just make it even EASIER to arrest them all the moment one commits a crime. It won't be legal to sell guns to people who aren't members of a gun club. They will really and truly only be able to get guns illegally.