The first American gun control law: the Second Amendment

Second AmendmentThe arms manufacturers and the NRA lobbyists have it all backwards. The Second Amendment was not created to guarantee an individual right to bear and use arms for whatever purposes desired. Instead, the Amendment can be considered the nation’s first national gun control law, designed to keep arms out of the hands of insurrectionists.

The Second Amendment’s national gun control effort was preceded by state gun control laws. For example, in the 1750s, Georgia statutes required slave patrol militias to make monthly searches of “all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition,” that is, to keep guns out of the hands of slaves.

Although James Madison’s original wording of the Second Amendment stressed the importance of “a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country,” the word “country” was replaced by “state,” in order to win the approval of Virginia and other slave-owning states for the new Constitution.

In its final wording–“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”)–the Second Amendment:

  • Granted the federal government the right to use armed militias to protect the security of the new nation, and
  • Left untouched the state right to use militias to prevent slaves from obtaining and using weapons.

To learn more, read this article or watch this powerful interview with Thom Hartman.

For more than 100 years, the judgments of state and federal courts as well as the United States Supreme Court held sway: the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual’s right to buy and use guns outside the context of a state-controlled militia.

Then as recently as 1977, at a meeting of the National Rifle Association, a concerted effort was undertaken by ultraconservatives to sell the country on a reframed version of the Second Amendment establishing those rights.

The arms industry has now gained control over enough of the government to usurp arms control, undermining the democratic processes by which ordinary citizens seek to reinstate reasonable restrictions on weapons sales.

So ask yourself, do you want arms manufacturers rewriting our history and our Constitution, especially when their lobbying has contributed to the U.S. having the world’s highest gun fatality rate?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

The holy text of the NRA

By guest author Dr. Mike Corgan

The Second Amendment’s 27 words are the holiest of holy texts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters. “We get to have guns” is an absolute right, says the NRA.

Assault rifle
Photo by 82josh used under CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.

Is the Second or any of the other Bill of Rights Amendments absolute? Not so in the case of the First Amendment–freedom of speech. Federal courts have said you can’t “falsely call fire in a theater.”

But gun advocates seem to think differently, i.e., any infringement begins the “slippery slope” to confiscation.

Of all the Amendments in the Bill Of Rights, only the Second has an introductory clause that states its purpose: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….”

In this Amendment, the words Militia, State, and Arms are capitalized, but “people” is not. Does this suggest an emphasis on what was deemed important, as writers of those days usually intended?

A number of federal courts have held that that the introductory clause is not itself  restrictive, yet it does stand alone in the Bill.

A recent article in the New York Times reported that the U.S. Constitution is no longer the model for new democracies around the globe. The reason? The Second Amendment.

Gun violence is still one of of the areas in which the U.S. leads the world. Another recent article in the Times noted that American buyers are keeping the Kalashnikov assault rifle factory in Russia going strong.

Is this how we want to be known?

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of International Relations, Boston University

The Constitution corrupted, Part 2

In my last post, I considered one factor contributing to mass violence—a form of domestic terrorism–in the United States. That factor is the corrupting of the U.S. Constitution by extremist right wing groups—often supported by and aligned with the National Rifle Association.

U.S. Bill of Rights
U.S. Bill of Rights. Image in public domain.

This post provides further examples of the distorted versions of Constitutional Amendments promoted by these groups, as well as examples of real Amendments they would like to nullify all together.

A)     Here are DISTORTED versions of real amendments:

Amendment 7.  Anyone can be incarcerated for any suspected crime and anyone can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law because the country is in a continuous state of public danger;

Amendment 8. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury unless such a trial could prove embarrassing to those in power or their supporters;

In addition to several of the first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) to the Constitution, there are several other Amendments that right wing extremists would like to gut, and already often ignore.

B)     Here are some REAL Constitutional amendments under attack from right wing extremists (see, for example):

Amendment 14. Citizenship cannot be denied on the basis of skin color and all citizens are guaranteed equal rights and equal protection under the law—even in the face of resistance by individual states and local communities.

Amendment 15. The right to vote cannot be denied on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Trying to destroy basic Constitutional protections because they do not promote your own interests, values, and prejudices is the opposite of true conservatism.

The right wing extremists, the neo-nazis, the white supremacists are not conservatives. They do not want to conserve or preserve the Constitution or democracy. They cloak their hateful agenda in distorted versions of Constitutional Amendments framed as justifications of personal freedom to dominate and terrorize.

As for Amendments designed to promote social justice and equality, the preference of those right wing extremists is to shoot them down, just like other obstacles.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

The Constitution corrupted, Part I

Hate crimes victims data
Graphic by Abram Samuelson, used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Seven more deaths (including the gunman) and four more wounded in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Why? Racism, hatred, anger, fear, frustration, propaganda, the easy availability of weapons, and the corruption of the United States Constitution.

Pseudo-conservative, pseudo-Christian, pseudo-moral right-wing extremists have been able to convince too many people that the United States Bill of Rights was written solely for them.

Their claims appeal in particular to the increasing number of people who see the American dream escaping them, who struggle to make a living in a society where wealth seems to abound, and who wonder why they can’t have it all.

The propaganda giants are only too happy to create scapegoats.

Imagine what it would be like if the Bill of Rights were re-written by the power-hungry right-wing minority that would like everyone to believe that our basic rights should be interpreted as follows:

Amendment I. Congress shall make no laws interfering with the right religion; Congress shall not interfere with the freedom to spread lies and hatred and to incite to violence; Congress shall not interfere with the right of people to assemble peacefully as long as they are the right people.

Amendment II. Nobody shall interfere with the right of disaffected vengeful people to bear arms in order to kill anyone who disagrees with them (or is the wrong color or the wrong religion or the wrong nationality).

Amendment IV.  People have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures unless they are the wrong people.

These are NOT the original Amendments to our Constitution—the Constitution that our public officials swear to uphold. (See the correct wording.)

In the next post, I will consider how some of the other Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been corrupted by seekers after power who have no interest in human rights or democracy–only the pursuit of their own interests.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology