gracchusdixit

Nearly all those who are now proposing—and ever so timidly hoping—for some change in our ridiculously lax guns laws swaddle their proposals in two reassuring caveats.  First, they say that they are merely advancing “common sense” measures designed to limit only the most egregious consequences of unfettered gun ownership.  Second, they say—almost pleadingly—that they continue to support the Second Amendment.  Nearly all reassure us that “common sense” and the Second Amendment can live harmoniously together.  Unfortunately, nobody on the public stage has yet had the courage to stand up and say the obvious: there is nothing even remotely sensible about the Second Amendment.

Whatever sense or relevance the Second Amendment may have possessed in Colonial America evaporated long ago, and its continued presence on the books would be merely silly if it weren’t so destructive.  It is, in fact, the major obstacle standing in the way of all constructive and sensible change in our guns laws.   Instead of paying slavish lip service to the Second Amendment, we should be talking about abolishing it and, along with the Amendment itself, the entire gun culture it has been allowed to spawn.

The truth of the matter is, the “common sense” measures of gun control now being proposed won’t even begin to solve the problem.  Most of the gun-caused deaths in our country have nothing to do with assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, convicted felons or the certifiably insane.  They are caused by run of the mill handguns possessed by run of the mill people:  for the most part, depressed or desperate people who turn those guns on themselves.  The problem is that we have nearly as many guns in the United States as we have people, and, unless something changes, we will soon have more.

No amount of talk about “sportsmen,” “self-defense” and “responsible gun ownership” can alter the fact that guns are lethal weapons, which are designed to kill.  There is no need or possible justification for their continued presence in our homes and on our streets.  If some people want to indulge in target practice, let them buy dart boards.  If they want kill animals, let them go to work in a butcher shop or a slaughterhouse.  If they want to collect firearms for their historical or antiquarian interest, let them visit a museum.  If they want to own guns to demonstrate their virility, let’s send them to a psychiatrist.  Among the so-called “civilized” countries of the world, we are the only one that clings to guns as a matter of “right” rather than privilege.  This is a sickness.  Clinging to the tragic silliness of the Second Amendment won’t cure us of the disease.

The Constitution is a wonderful document, but it isn’t holy writ.  It was written by men, admittedly brilliant but men nonetheless.  They lived at a particular time, under a particular set of circumstances.  They were wiser and more prescient than most, but they were not omniscient, nor could they see into the future.  They could not envision automatic weapons.  They could not predict the stubborn insanity of the NRA.  They could not imagine, in their worst and wildest dreams, the slaughter of mere babies in Newtown, Connecticut by a monster exercising his “right to bear arms.”    We have changed the Constitution before.  It is time to change it again.  I am reasonably certain that the Founding Fathers, were they alive today, would be leading the way.