"Repeal the Second Amendment" -- article

[Matt Holcomb]

Repeal the Second Amendment

The best way to reduce the odds of another blood bath like the one at Virginia Tech is to amend the Constitution and abolish the right to bear arms.

By Walter Shapiro

Apr. 18, 2007 | Fifteen unambiguous words are all that would be required to quell the American-as-apple-pie cycle of gun violence that has now tearfully enshrined Virginia Tech in the record book of mass murder. Here are the 15 words that would deliver a mortal wound to our bang-bang culture of death: "The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

Even Pollyanna on Prozac would acknowledge the daunting odds against repeal. Steering an anti-gun constitutional amendment through, say, the Montana or Missouri legislatures (approval of three-quarters of the states is required for ratification) would be a task on par with cleaning the Augean stables. But the benefits of separating gun owners from their extraordinary constitutional protections should not be ignored. Without the Second Amendment, firearms could be regulated by the federal government in the same fashion as any other potentially dangerous devices, from coal-mine elevators to single-engine planes. While there is no way to guarantee that another Cho Seung-Hui would be deprived of access to a Glock, hitting the delete button on the Second Amendment surely would lower the odds against future mayhem.

Questioning the very existence of the Second Amendment would also transform the increasingly sterile congressional debates -- when they even occur -- over firearms. Gun control has become one of those quixotic crusades that conjure up noble intentions, overblown rhetoric and political defeat. The cause seems as moribund and musty as a Dukakis sticker on a Volvo. Congress even lacks the political gumption to revive the expired Clinton-era ban on assault weapons, firearms that are more useful for storming beachheads than hunting deer. Instead of regulating guns, the Republican Congress moved boldly in 2005 to shield gun manufacturers from class action suits. And just last month, a federal appeals court overturned the no-nonsense District of Columbia law outlawing handguns as a violation of the Second Amendment.

Despite a decade-long string of such political victories, the National Rifle Association still revels in the apocalyptic imagery of liberal jackboots trampling on the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of gun-loving patriots. After the Democrats took control of Congress last November, the NRA issued a brochure that began ominously, "Second Amendment freedom today stands naked in the path of a marching axis of adversaries far darker and more dangerous than gun owners have ever known."

Small wonder that liberals have become timorous under fire from the NRA militants. When even the most modest reforms -- such as regulating gun sales between private individuals -- are ridiculed as radical nostrums, it is hard for politicians to justify squandering their political capital on a seemingly hopeless cause. Frustrated by the constraints imposed by the right-to-bear-arms language in the Second Amendment, proponents of gun-control legislation have always worked on the margins. "Close the gun-show loophole" is not likely to be remembered as one of the most stirring slogans in political history.

The result has been a blunt form of cost-benefit analysis among politicians. If federal gun-control efforts mandating background checks and waiting periods do not solve the larger problem of too many unstable Americans shooting first and asking questions later (insert Dick Cheney reference here), why risk political defeat to uphold and expand these modest laws? Even in the battle to save lives from gun violence, senators and congressmen are understandably reluctant to gamble with their own careers.

Since the NRA would probably claim that legislation to ban private possession of atomic weapons is part of a plot to destroy the Second Amendment, maybe it is time for liberals to stop denying the charge. Authenticity and truth-telling often work better in politics than weaselly and palpably insincere statements like, "No one is more dedicated a hunter and lover of the Second Amendment than I am, but..." If gun-control advocates are going to be hanged in effigy for their views, they should at least have the momentary enjoyment of making a speech from the scaffold expressing their true sentiments. Without having to endlessly fret about the constitutionality of any regulatory effort to reduce gun-related deaths, liberals might be able to directly discuss the benefits of such legislation in terms that even open-minded members of the NRA might appreciate.

Looking at the Bill of Rights with more than two centuries' hindsight, it is simply irrational that firearms have a protected position on par with freedom of speech and religion. Were Americans -- liberal or conservative -- writing a Constitution completely from scratch today, they probably would agree that something akin to "freedom to drive" was more far important than the "right to bear arms." The rights of state militias (which many liberal legal theorists argue is the essence of the Second Amendment) are as much a throwback to an 18th century mind-set as restrictions on quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime (the little-remembered Third Amendment).

At the moment, of course, repealing the Second Amendment seems as politically plausible as welcoming Iraq as the 51st state. But think of how many other causes have gone from the radical to the routine in a single generation. Not even a decade ago, civil unions for gay couples seemed laughably utopian. Now it is the bipartisan middle-ground position in both parties (insert second Cheney reference). When the conservative Federalist Society was founded in 1982 with the goal of combating the liberal tilt to the federal judiciary, not even its founders could have imagined how successful they would be a quarter-century later.

Times change, generations pass and attitudes evolve. As fears of crime recede in many places, nervous homeowners may no longer be obsessed with having a .45 by the bedside to blow away phantom intruders. There is also an implicit racial component here with the bygone Archie Bunker generation having a specific image of exactly whom they feared climbing in a window at night. Even the fearsome NRA may well sharply decline as a political force, much as once-fierce-jawed interest groups like the American Legion and the labor movement have grown increasingly toothless over the past quarter-century.

Against this backdrop, liberals should look at the firearms issue from a long-term perspective, instead of going into a fetal crouch over how gun control will play in the next election. A repeal movement would at best take 15 to 20 years to reach critical mass, so this is not the moment to play litmus-test politics and require White House contenders to take self-defeating positions guaranteed to be excoriated in attack ads in West Virginia. But this would be an appropriate time for overly earnest gun-controllers to rethink their tone and their rhetoric to better understand why their opponents are so politically adept at tarring them as elitists. After all, hunters and marksmen no more need the Second Amendment to practice their sports than archers and race-car drivers require similar constitutional protection.

Rather than ducking a debate with the conservatives over the eternal primacy of the Second Amendment, gun-control backers should embrace it. Since right-wing Republicans are zealously championing constitutional amendments on everything from abortion to a balanced budget, it would take intellectual jujitsu for them to explain why the First Amendment is worthy of improvement (by severing flag burning from free speech), but the Second Amendment unquestionably must remain sacrosanct. For only in Tom Clancy-esque mythology are weekend hunters carrying assault weapons a bulwark against tyranny. Only in a nation forged by 18th century concerns about liberty and states' rights do firearms have a hallowed place in the Constitution.

It doesn't have to be that way. Any more than we as Americans have to continually face the real-life meaning of that gruesome, blood-soaked, gun-toting word "massacre" because of the outmoded language of the Second Amendment.

[sjf911]

ban private possession of atomic weapons

You mean I have to give up my thermonuclear device? It keeps me sooooo warm at night.

[URY914]

I'll give up my piece when they pry it from my cold lifeless hand...

[tabs]

And I don't have to turn the lights on either I can read in its glow.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Shapiro is one hell of a dumb f*ck.

I wonder if he lost any relatives in WWII.

mildly edited to remove epithet - ns

[FrayAdjacent911]

Yes, as VT showed us, being completey disarmed makes you SAFE.

LET'S DISARM EVERYONE!!!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

If guns were banned, this nutcase would have done it with a knife or a chainsaw or a baseball bat. ANYTHING can be made a weapon. It's been done since the beginning of time when our great-to-the-Nth grandparents bashed each others' skulls in with rocks.

Comparison: Efforts at nuclear nonproliferation to keep "rogue nations" and "terrorist groups" from being able to kill en masse. Al Qaeda is (as a result of nuclear non-proliferation) unable to procure a nuclear weapon. So they find a creative way to kill a whole bunch of people with the means they DO have at their disposal (suicide bombers, truck bombs, airplanes, etc.) This is no different, just on a smaller scale. It'll ALWAYS be possible for deranged people to kill - and kill en masse - and kill en masse EFFECTIVELY with or without a given piece of technology.

The guns aren't the problem. The nutcases are the problem - with or without the guns.

[legion]

Disarming the populace makes them wholly dependent on the government for "security". When the populace is wholly dependent on the government for security, they are at the mercy of the government and are likely to make other concessions (that they otherwise would never consider) for continued security.

Besides, has any country that has banned guns witnessed a decrease in crime? Most are just ripe, juicy targets sitting there.

[Jeff Higgins]

I have admittedly chosen not to follow the story, in a large part to avoid this kind of innevitable senseless drivel from the hand-wringing moronic ninnies of the world. I'm therefor a bit out of touch. So answer me this - he was an exchange student, no? So he was not a U.S. citizen? As a resident alien, isn't he prohibited from having a firearm anyway?

[Matt Holcomb]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
If guns were banned, this nutcase would have done it with a knife or a chainsaw or a baseball bat. ANYTHING can be made a weapon. It's been done since the beginning of time when our great-to-the-Nth grandparents bashed each others' skulls in with rocks.

Comparison: Efforts at nuclear nonproliferation to keep "rogue nations" and "terrorist groups" from being able to kill en masse. Al Qaeda is (as a result of nuclear non-proliferation) unable to procure a nuclear weapon. So they find a creative way to kill a whole bunch of people with the means they DO have at their disposal (suicide bombers, truck bombs, airplanes, etc.) This is no different, just on a smaller scale. It'll ALWAYS be possible for deranged people to kill - and kill en masse - and kill en masse EFFECTIVELY with or without a given piece of technology.

The guns aren't the problem. The nutcases are the problem - with or without the guns.

Jeff, you're absolutely correct; guns are not the problem, but easy access to them ensures that the body count will be significantly higher when a deeply disturbed person like Cho Seung-Hui finally cracks.

The Second Amendment must be debated with vigor by open minds in Congress.

[legion]

Matt,

Don't take this the wrong way, but...

STAY THE F*** OUT OF MY COUNTRY'S INTERNAL AFFAIRS!

[berettafan]

Originally posted by Matt Holcomb

The Second Amendment must be debated with vigor by open minds in Congress.

Ummm.....no, it doesn't need to be debated.



To be expected from an Aussie.

[the]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
If guns were banned, this nutcase would have done it with a knife or a chainsaw or a baseball bat.

Actually, if guns were banned, he probably would have still done it with . . . a gun.

[mikester]

Originally posted by BlueSkyJaunte
Shapiro is one hell of a dumb f*cking Jew.

I wonder if he lost any relatives in WWII.

What does him being a Jew have to do with his intelligence?

It seems to me that it has nothing to do with it, nothing at all.

Your statement is dripping with hate and I know that I don't appreciate it myself and I doubt that hate is something the owner of this board would like reflected in his business.

Seriously.

[legion]

Yep. Just like Prohibition and the War on Drugs...a ban on guns will work equally well.

[Rearden]

What a moronic idea. Like all the murderers and thiefs and rapists would turn in their guns because they wouldn't feel comfortable doing something illegal like possessing a banned firearm.

[mikester]

This person would have found one way or another to do what they did; those who do not understand that and think that the guns enabled the deed are wrong.

The man and what was in his head enabled the deed.

The guns were the tool he choose to use. He could have easily simple wired himself up with some explosives (made from home chemicals) and probably been just as successful.

I don't have the answer, I just know that repealing the 2nd isn't it.

[Rick Lee]

ANyone who advocates repealing anything in the Bill of Rights has zero credibility. While the Third Amendment really is pretty irrelevant today, even it needs to stay to remind folks how this country was founded.

[rrpjr]

An article greasy with emotionalisms, bad faith and childish choplogic. That is to say, roundly leftist.

The Left loathes gun rights because they loathe the notion of the sanctity of the individual over the power of the state. People with guns are less easy to control and to submit (even if only seemingly) to the will of the state.

At work here also is soft-headed liberalism, that which prefers comforting delusions and feel-good illogic over the eternal paradox of human nature at play in society (e.g., the truth that more gun rights actually reduce crime, just as lower taxes actually increase government revenue), and refuses to accept the basic risks that go along with the rewards and joys of liberty.

The shrill cry to strip citizens of their right to keep and bear arms –to infantilize all individuals because one behaved savagely – goes on and will go on despite all evidence of its inefficacy. That's what leftism is about.

The second amendment doesn't need to be debated. It needs to be reaffirmed.

[Dantilla]

How come nobody ever questions the first amendment?