24 Years And One Day Since Columbine
While it might not have been the first of its kind, Columbine left an indelible mark in America’s struggle with mass shootings. With such violence seemingly at, or at least near an all-time high, how
Hello, friends,
Last week, we covered a trio of news stories. This week, we’re diving into a topic that is all too prescient in American culture: Guns.
Why not? We just had an ignoble anniversary. I’m not going to rehash the entire Columbine massacre, but you can educate yourself at your leisure.
Right up front - This is where I make all the usual disclaimers someone on the left is forced to make: I not only support the Second Amendment, I support it wholeheartedly and don’t mind people owning guns one bit. Hell, I encourage it. I’m not here to grab guns, I’m here to make sure they are, if not zero threat (because they can’t be), certainly less of one.
That said, right now you’ve got a news cycle consumed by psychopaths shooting at random people who happen to get anywhere near their property. Ralph Yarl was shot and nearly killed for ringing the wrong doorbell; Kaylin Gillis was murdered and her friends were shot at for turning around in the wrong driveway; a six year old girl, Kinsley White, was among others who were nearly killed because her ball went over the wrong fence.
This can not be allowed to continue.
The problem, as I see it, harkens back to the fundamental reading of the Second Amendment of our government’s foundational Constitution.
How We Read The Second Amendment Matters.
Second Amendment-in-plain-text time:
“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.”
Now…Look, it’s not like I’m a huge fan of the people who wrote the Constitution in the first place. I mean, they left out things like equal protection of the law, and left in things like slavery, so I really - really - don’t want to hang an entire argument off of what a bunch of racist, enslaving, long-dead white men of extreme privilege had to say.
But, since our government is derived from their document, I’m forced to at least try to consider their original intentions.
And…The Second Amendment is entirely incomprehensible.
It starts off with the idea of “a well-regulated militia.” To me, that’s pure, unbridled context. Everything that follows must flow from the start of that weird, janky sentence. That is, after all, how sentences work.
Then there’s this little explainer about how the Militia is “necessary to the security of a free State.” So, we’re clearly drawing from the well-regulated Militia bit! Neat! So far, so simple!
Then the sentence shifts to “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” Well, okay. Militia members typically owned their own weapons. The overwhelmingly clear implication is that the “people” referred to here are members of a “well-regulated militia.”
Finally, it says, “shall not be infringed.”
So what I’m reading is that the militia is really important to the defense of a State, and so they are allowed to own guns. The government can’t say no to that on grounds that such a thing would weaken the State militia, which - at the time - was seen as far more important a defense (or maybe more an offense…) mechanism, especially on the western borders before we Manifest Destiny’d ourselves into cross-continentality.
That seems pretty fucking simple, at least to a simple not-a-lawyer like myself. I mean, I don’t have a law degree, but I do have a degree in English that enables me to break down a simple sentence and understand what it does and does not say in plain English; as well as a degree in history from which I can interpret historical context.
Yet this is where we acknowledge that the Heller Decision by the Supreme Court exists.
The Heller Decision Sucks And One Day Must Be Revisited.
As per Cornell’s Legal Information Institution, the Heller decision of 2008 affirms an individual’s right to own firearms in a fashion that’s decoupled from militia service. And, as we all know, it’s not like the Supreme Court has ever been wrong (see: Dred Scott, Korematsu), and that no precedent has ever been overturned (see: Roe v Wade, Plessy V Ferguson).
Like I said, no precedent has ever been overturned.
The sarcasm should be dripping out your eyeballs right about now.
Therefore, if Roe wasn’t “settled law,” and that’s about protecting an individual’s right to control their own body, then surely there is no guarantee about rights that are not about protecting one’s own body.
In a more-but-still-not-perfect world where the Supreme Court had been expanded following the 2020 election (you know, since it was packed by Mitch McConnell stealing seats), I would have advocated a push to seat judges who understand that Heller was bad precedent. I would have wanted judges to be very clear going in (versus lying about their judicial intentions) that, “yes, I will overturn Heller.”
Now, you might imagine that this loose talk of returning to a more originalist perspective on things is both hypocritical of me (since I’ve professed distaste for the original sources) as well as prone to sparking public fury.
That’s why I’d like to offer a compromise.
Compromise? On The Second Amendment?
Like I said, I like the idea of people being able to own weapons. Self-defense is a Human right as much as any other, and deserves consideration.
So here we go: We need to rewrite the Second Amendment.
Rewriting The Second Amendment?!
We need to accomplish two things with this ludicrous proposal.
First, we need to make sure it permits people to own weapons.
Second, we need to make sure there are safeguards in place to make sure that the people who own the weapons are well trained - and, to quote the current Second Amendment, “Well-Regulated.”
I’m not going to pretend I can think of the best language for such an amendment. I am, if I must repeat, not a lawyer. It would go something like this:
“As self-defense is a Human right, all State/Federal authorities must allow the possession of defensive weapons with a responsible user. To this end, State guidelines and regulations for firearm possession must be established, to include requiring 40 hours of training, a criminal background check, and a mental health exam which shall, if requested, be funded by the permitting authority. All weapons must be stored securely unless in use and supervised.”
Here’s what that language does:
It is as clear and concise as I could think of to make it.
It guarantees the individual right to own weapons.
At no point does it seize existing weapons.
I used the term “State/Federal,” as this is negotiable in this hypothetical rewrite.
It sets a concrete requirement on training time. To that end, 40 hours is more of a place-holder for a reasonable length of time for a person to learn how to use, transport, and store weapons safely in accordance with . This would also significantly impact people who buy their first firearms with an immediate plan of action, forcing them to wait - and, perhaps, cool down.
It requires mental health exams to own a firearm. It further sets forth a requirement that the permitting authority must, upon request, pay for these exams. That way, firearms access is not so intimately tied to wealth.
It leaves open room for legislatures to determine what a “defensive” weapon is.
It requires safe storage of weapons.
Some weaknesses are:
It relies upon the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee equality in access to firearms. I thought about including a specific clause, something like “In no way shall race, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation be used to determine eligibility.” Nothing really felt like it wasn’t just reiterating what’s already understood in the Fourteenth.
It generally cannot determine what specifically will cause someone to fail a criminal background check. This matter will almost certainly be left up to the relevant authority’s legislature.
It does not, and likely can not, seek to define what weapons are or are not permitted. “Defensive” is a term left to the legislature, or perhaps the court. In theory, any weapon is defensive; but in theory, any weapon is offensive. If I got to decide, I’d say that semiautomatic weapons are acceptable, whereas fully automatic ones are not. I’d also say that magazine size regulation is absolutely in play.
Paired with the above thought: It does nothing to control whatever weapons are already in circulation. Legislation would be required to determine how existing weapons which might not otherwise be classified as defensive are grandfathered in.
Last but certainly not least: It won’t make everyone happy.
It’s important to remember, it is certain to make some people very unhappy, mainly because they’d never be happy with any change, anyway. They aren’t interested in negotiating any reforms, and therefore we can’t spend time worrying about what they’ll do.
We have an epidemic of violence in this country whether they like it or not, and that epidemic must be arrested.
I hate to be reductive, but how many innocent lives does it take for people to realize that a system is imperfect and in need of course correcting? Is the right to own and bear arms so fragile that it cannot be reformed in a way that gives both sides almost everything they want, and allows for the potentiality of State-legislated solutions for situations where one size might not fit all situations? Can we really not fix a poorly written sentence and make it manageable?
If your counter-argument is, “The government might need to be overthrown so we can’t even rewrite things to make them better,” well, there’s really not likely to be much of a conversation here. Never mind that air forces and napalm exist in 2023, so the chances of that working are infinitesimal at best, suicidal at worst, and most certainly such a last resort as to almost be unthinkable.
If your argument is that everyone has the right to self defense, then, yes, that’s what my suggestion does.
It just doesn’t let maniacs get high-powered weapons with ease.
It just makes us all part of a well-regulated militia.
In Other News…
As you may know, the Supreme Court granted a stay that keeps the abortion medication Mifepristone remain available.
After much delay, Republicans released a budget. It sucks.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.