Second Amendment Economics

Whatever else we might say, our United States seems of two minds regarding people murdered by other people wielding firearms: we deeply regret the lives lost to lunatics shooting semi-automatic weapons but we reiterate that such tragedies do not override Second Amendment protections of the liberty to keep and bear arms. I say “we” because, first, we have a broad and successfully organized lobby for not only preserving but advancing Second Amendment rights, a lobby that certainly contributed to our Supreme Court’s recent decision interpreting the Second Amendment to provide an individual’s right to keep and bear arms regardless of any civic interest (the first time in our long history the Supreme Court has found such an unrestrained individual right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment).

I say “we” because, second, recent polling data describe the majority of those polled as favoring more government regulations on the sale of firearms and the types of firearms available for purchase. Please note: this is a temporary majority whose numbers usually spike after some seriously deranged person takes up arms and murders a bunch of people, as recently happened in Tuscon (and Tuscon brings to mind Virginia Tech and UT Austin and the Amish schoolhouse, remember that one?). But so far, this majority has not organized their convictions (and, again, their convictions waver far more than those of gun rights advocates) to a politically persuasive extent. A subset of this majority has mobilized and organized, have called for tighter regulations and have had some success – the Brady Bill comes to mind, though that bill was signed into law by President Clinton twelve years after John Hinkley shot James Brady along with President Reagan and two others, hardly a speedy success.

Finally, I say “we” because you and I – assuming neither you nor I are members of a gun rights group or have been polled – hold private convictions on the matter, convictions we’ve generally kept to ourselves or at most have posted online in the form of “what a shame” or “this is tragic” or a link to an article that does express a strong opinion, for or against. Most of us – and the unpolled and unaffiliated form a sizeable majority, a vast majority – swing emotionally from one argument to the next, feeling that our Constitution does guarantee us rights that are important, feeling horrible about such senseless killings, feeling either emboldened or repulsed by vocal advocacy groups such as the NRA, but we haven’t taken the time to think through the issues and, having thought, to contact our Representative and Senators about our opinions. We in the vast majority are buffeted to and fro by the winds of our shifting public discourse, but usually, if we have an opinion, we keep it generally private.

So we – all of us in this great country – share responsibility for our current predicament: our governments allow each of us, provided we are of sufficient age and pass a computerized background check (with all the shortcomings and strengths of computerization), to bear firearms of astonishing power, capacity and efficiency, even firearms that seem to be designed primarily for shooting other people (for instance, semi-automatic handguns or armor-piercing ammunition). And I realize it’s hard to speak about “we” in meaningful ways since “we” in this instance refers to our United States. Yet our Constitution does just that, beginning “We the people of the United States,” and even though our Constitution’s ratification did not depend on every citizen eligible to vote voting “yea” (ours is a republic, not a democracy), our Constitution represents all of us through the medium of our elected and appointed representatives. So by using “we” I don’t mean to speak about each and every person in this country, but about a public consensus of “we,” representing the media and debates and governments and laws and opinions and spokespersons that our citizenry exude like will-o-the-wisps over sloughs and swamps, that fleeting, shifting, miasmical “we” of representational public discourse.

I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that “we” have adopted a cost/benefit approach to our stance regarding our firearm predicament: though we’re horrified, the number of people killed by other people using firearms, even the particulars about those so killed (for instance, a nine year old girl or a septuagenarian shielding his wife), have so far not risen to a level that would make us willing to curtail a constitutionally protected freedom. If this is the case, why don’t we try a little thought experiment. Let’s ask ourselves this question: how many murders through use of firearms would it take to make us willing to curtail Second Amendment freedoms?

If we answer anything other than “it doesn’t matter how many people are murdered using firearms: a right is a right,” then we demonstrate that it is possible for a certain number of murders to make us reevaluate our convictions regarding the Second Amendment, that is, “we” will preserve and protect the right to keep and bear arms lightly fettered (current regulations, the NRA’s rhetoric notwithstanding, are truly light fetters) provided not too many of us are brutally, senselessly murdered. And whether that number is fifty thousand or one hundred thousand or one million over a one-year period, or if it is just one poignant tragedy (all are poignant, but Nickel Mines comes to mind as especially so), if we’re using a cost/benefit approach our reasoning is morally suspect: we subsidize the constitutional right to bear arms on the people that have been murdered by other people using firearms, and not on thoughtful considerations or patriotic convictions regarding constitutional rights. Bottom line: there haven’t been enough murders for we the people to amend our constitutional right to bear arms.

As for me, I hope and pray that our answer will never be, “it doesn’t matter how many: a right is a right.” Such absolutism hides too many other issues – firearm culture, sports enthusiasm or last-ditch security against encroaching government militantism among them – behind a blanket assertion of constitutional rights. And I find it more frightening if such an answer is honest, if nothing else is on the table except constitutionalism. Such an answer grants way too much foresight to our well-intentioned founders - foresight they undoubtedly would not claim for themselves – and privileges their supposed foresight over all our subsequent history. If we say “a right is a right” we portray the most inhumane brutality, not just to those six murdered in Tuscon, but to every person murdered in every city and home for whatever reason, and to every survivor of attempted murder, and to every person related to or friends with a murder or attempted-murder victim, hell, we portray the most inhumane brutality to everyone, victim or not, including you and me and “We, the people”: all our lives are found wanting when weighed in the balance against Second Amendment rights.

Please, let’s you and I say it is possible for there to be so many murders by people using firearms that we’d seriously consider changing our interpretation of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms, that you and I would encourage our elected Representatives and Senators to amend the Second Amendment. Let’s pick a horrible number of murders – say, one hundred thousand in a calendar year – and say that once we reach that level, we’ll do something about regulating the purchase and use of firearms more stringently. Once we’ve set that number, then we’ll see how cheaply we hold all those lives that fall short of our arbitrary number, and rather than weighing all of us against the Second Amendment, we’ll see how we weigh even those tragic victims – real this time and not speculative, with names and histories and birthdates and deathdates – against the Second Amendment and find them, too, wanting. Perhaps then we, the people, can move from two minds to one: no right is worth this. Thank you for reading.