Solution or Problem?

The nation is in the midst of a gun control debate. It was a furor, but now it's just a debate. The president is working hard to return it to the state of furor because it's important, you see. Kids in Newtown, Connecticut, were killed. People in Tucson, Arizona, were shot, including a congresswoman and a 9-year-old girl. In the Sandy Hook shooting, 28 people (including the shooter) lost their lives -- mostly children -- and in Tucson six people died. Gun control is important. We need to act now. Ask Gabby Giffords. "Be bold. Be courageous. Be for background checks." Ask the Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The time to act is now!

I'm in favor of solving problems. I'm just wondering if anyone is paying attention to the problem. Consider this. In the last 20 years the two largest mass killings in the U.S. were accomplished using fertilizer and box cutters. What? No, not guns. In fact, while the U.S. seems to have one of the highest murder rates among advanced countries, the rate is going down while gun ownership is rising. While we're all sure that assault weapons are a bad thing, the question is why? As it turns out they're poorly defined and rarely the weapon of choice in assaults and murders. Too hard to hide, actually. And while you will often hear that the shooter used an automatic weapon, as it turns out those weapons have been outlawed since the 1930's. What we have today are mostly semi-automatic weapons. One trigger pull; one shot. Further, when you examine atrocities like Newtown and Tucson, it's not at all clear that the current rush to fix the problem would have made a bit of difference. As in so many cases, the Connecticut shooting took place with stolen weapons. In the case of the Tucson shooting, the perpetrator, Jared Loughner, was never diagnosed with a mental problem, so a background check would have done nothing. These things aren't working.

The real question, though, is what the real problem is. Is it guns? If that's the problem, the solution is to remove the problem. As it turns out, however, the places with the strictest gun laws don't seem to enjoy a more peaceful existence. Chicago, for instance, is known for its draconian gun laws ... and as the murder capital of the country. Will removing guns decrease gun violence? Well, obviously. But I would suggest that guns are not the real problem, so removing them is not the real solution. Further, the 2nd Amendment would concur.

We're told that the 2nd Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms. That misses the point. The point of the 2nd Amendment was not to guarantee that you and I have weapons for hunting and home defense. Wrong conclusion. Indeed, the Amendment itself explains why we are guaranteed the right to bear arms. "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 stated purpose of the guaranteed freedom to keep and bear arms is "a well-regulated militia." So, what's that? "Oh, see? That's the military!" Wrong! A militia is a body of citizens, not professional military. They may be called out periodically for drill but serve full time only in emergencies. The Founding Fathers understood two things. First, the way a government represses its people is via the military. Thus, a standing army was dangerous to freedom. Second, with rights comes responsibility. It was called the "social compact". James Madison wrote on the social compact concept that it "contemplates a certain number of individuals as meeting and agreeing to form one political society, in order that the rights, the safety, and the interests of each may be under the safeguard of the whole." That is the "social compact". The 2nd Amendment secured our right to bear arms in order to safeguard the whole of our society. It is our right and our responsibility.

Back to the problem, then. Bad people are shooting innocent people. Is the solution to remove guns from the hands of citizens? Not according to the 2nd Amendment or the Founding Fathers. Should we limit the fire power? I can't see how this would align with the intent of the Bill of Rights. So should we give guns to the crazies? Ah, there, now we run into a point of agreement. The ACLU and the liberal left have made sure that people with mental problems cannot be locked up against their will. Now they want to remove your freedom to defend your home, your neighbor's home, and your neighborhood from these people. This is not the answer. If the problem is people killing people, removing a weapon -- one, by the way, that isn't typically the problem (most crime is not committed with assault weapons) -- won't solve the problem. It will violate the Bill of Rights. Come up with a better solution. In the meantime, we need to step up to our responsibility of defending our society. That was the point, after all.