The Second Amendment- Weep Not for the Children, but for their Children

Having ratified the United States Constitution on June, 21, 1788, the Congress realized that it was in immediate need of amendment, hence the passage of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, within fourteen months on September 25, 1789. The amendments were approved in order of their relative importance, according to what the framers determined to be most crucial, and were thus prioritized in order from one to ten.

In between the freedoms of religion, press, speech, assembly and petition (as outlined in the first amendment), and subsequent freedoms from forced quartering of soldiers, search and seizure without warrants of probable cause, unfair trials without juries, cruel and unusual punishments, and abrogation of delegated powers and those not specifically enumerated to the federal government (found in amendments three through ten), the same men who ratified the Constitution found it necessary to prioritize the second amendment:

“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.”

Of all the amendments to the Constitution (save the eighteenth which outlawed alcoholic beverages), the second amendment has proved to be the most fragile, most mis-interpreted, and most controversial. Over the years, its very meaning has been bandied about. Opponents to the right of citizens to own firearms have often claimed that the purpose of the second amendment is to provision well-regulated state militias, and nothing more. They claim that individual gun ownership is not what the second amendment is all about.

This mis-interpretation escalated to the point where the United States Supreme Court, in District of Columbia vs Heller (2008), ruled that the second amendment “protects an individual right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

So, it seems certain that the intent of the second amendment does, indeed, guarantee the right of individuals to possess firearms, and that government lacks the power to infringe upon these rights. Yet, of all the amendments to the Constitution, the second amendment’s rights are the ones upon which such freedoms have been most infringed.

For instance, since the 1930’s, automatic weapons are proscribed from private ownership. In essence, one cannot own an operational machine gun. Background checks, gun registration and licensing permits are all infringements on these rights, but have been deemed to be largely acceptable in the service of public safety. Mentally deranged people, quite rightly, are also proscribed from possessing guns of any kind- again, an infringement in the greater interest of public safety. Few would argue that these specific restrictions are not necessary and yet, every time there is a heinous mass shooting, the voice of those who would rather see the end to private gun ownership take advantage of these shootings, to call for ever-stricter gun control and systematic erosion of second amendment rights.

Before we are so quick to cede away our constitutional rights in the momentary hyperbole of outrage, in the wake of the latest mass shooting in Florida, perhaps we should consider the following from none other than Thomas Jefferson, citing Cesare Beccaria’s Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764),  on precisely why the second amendment is so very important to the success and survival of liberty:

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature (that) they disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Jefferson’s view precisely describes the ill-wisdom that is the essence of gun-free zones, and precisely why the passage of more and more gun control laws only makes our streets and our schools, our churches and our homes, more dangerous.

Simply stated, lawful citizens obey gun laws and criminals do not. So, all of the efforts to rid the nation of firearms- regardless of how passionate and how precious the screams of our youth are deemed to be genuine and worthy of consideration- the streets of Chicago and Baltimore, and a hundred other cities and suburbs also tell us that the preponderance of gun statutes are directly correlated to the escalation of gun violence, and not its extinction.

As the young generation arises, a generation which does not know their country’s history and does not have high regard for our constitutional rights, nor the reasons for its protections against potential governmental overreach, the freedoms we enjoy today may well be numbered, in both time and circumstance.

Weep not for the children, but for their children, who will know not the blessings of freedom and liberty, but rather the chains of subjugation and slavery.

-Drew Nickell, 21 February 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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