Yesterday brought us yet another story about a person who kills several people at random, flees from police and then ends the drama by killing himself. This time the episode unfolded in rural Alabama. Unsurprisingly, the Reuters release (see link below) included the following perspective:

“Mass shootings have become more frequent in recent years in the United States, where guns are widely available for purchase and the right to own weapons for self defense and hunting is defended by many.”

Of course, this only fuels the motivation of many to severely limit or even ban the private ownership of firearms. To the uninformed, this might even seem to be a logical solution to the problem of firearm violence. However, is it really the availability of guns that is causing the problem?

I hardly think so. As much as we want an easy solution to this senseless violence, banning private ownership of firearms is not it, and unfortunately, I don’t believe the solution will be easy to implement. The real problem is our self-centered culture where people see the entire world as revolving around them. When they feel they have been wronged by society, they lash out by inflicting harm, often deadly and randomly, on that same society. They act out against that nameless, faceless society they feel wronged them. And at the end of their rampage, these people engage in the ultimate act of cowardice; rather than face the consequences of their actions, they commit suicide.

To implement a solution to this problem would be to radically change our values as a culture. To do that, however, we need to understand the root cause of the problem. That root cause can be blamed on many things, but what it ultimately comes down to is a lack of consistent moral values. Over the past forty years, values which were deeply ingrained in American culture since its founding began to get watered down.

Moral values are seen by many today not as absolute, but as relative to the situation at hand for each person. People focus not on what is right, but what is perceived by them to be fair or unfair.  They need to learn that life isn’t fair, but rather that truth is consistent and unwavering. 

One last thought: Joshua Myers, an Alabama deputy sheriff who was involved in the effort to stop the shooting spree lost his wife and 18-month old daughter in that same shooting spree. Unbeknownst to him as he was performing his duty, his wife and daughter had just been killed by the same coward he was pursuing. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your other children, Joshua; thanks for your service to your community.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52A01D20090312

The first assumption we must consider is whether the second amendment is an individual right or a collective right. To arrive at a logical conclusion, we must try to understand the historical context of the second amendment. 

The founding fathers were strongly influenced by English distrust of standing armies. They believed a standing army was a key threat to individual liberty. When the founding fathers were crafting the Constitution, the British Army’s actions to seize the firearms of the people were fresh in their minds. 

Tench Coxe, in his “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution,” (Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789) wrote:

As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

While this is a very brief description of the historical context of the second amendment, I believe it clearly does not in any manner indicate a collective or state right, but an individual right of an armed citizenry to defend itself from potential tyranny imposed by a standing army. This individual right viewpoint was recently validated by the Supreme Court in its ‘DC v. Heller’ decision.

The second assumption we must agree upon is whether or not individual rights “expire” or can be taken away. It must first be stated that the constitution is not a book of laws and regulations, but a framework upon which our laws and regulations are based (the only exception to this is the eighteenth amendment which attempted to establish law and limit our rights – fortunately the twenty-first amendment corrected that aberration). While laws can change based on the needs of the state, the framework upon which they are based cannot without amending that framework. Should the constitution be amended to remove the “expired” right to keep and bear arms?

Many people argue the second amendment is no longer relevant, that we are not threatened by our standing military forces and have no real need to defend against tyranny. While it is likely true that we don’t need to keep and bear arms to defend against tyranny, does it mean we no longer have the right? Do rights expire upon attaining some set standard or because they are no longer popular? If so, will the right to free speech expire? What about the right to the free exercise of religion?  Or the right to be secure in our homes against unreasonable searches and seizures?  If we do allow rights to expire, who will decide what the standard is for expiry? 

I believe once we agree with the assumptions that the right to keep and bear arms is, in fact, an individual right and that none of us really want our rights to “expire,” we can only logically agree that the second amendment is relevant today and will continue to be. But what of the hunters and other sportsmen? Does the second amendment apply to them? I believe the answer is clearly yes. Not because they hunt or shoot, but because they are Americans living under the US Constitution.