Guns, Rights, Responsibilities
People and Arms, Rights and Responsibilities
Scientists at the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC recently published a research letter in JAMA, reporting on a comparison of life expectancy at birth in the U.S. to peer countries, mostly in Western Europe. The U.S. lags behind many, and these researchers analyzed causes of death to explain why. Their data suggest that three factors are responsible for denying Americans the full measure of life enjoyed by our European counterparts: car crashes, drugs, and guns. Guns made the largest contribution of the three.
Guns and bullets represent money; lots of money. Frankly, I think the gun industry, and NRA, are using the Second Amendment as a smoke screen, behind which lots of money is changing hands.
But let’s pretend that’s not the case. Let’s pretend this is really a battle of ideals, or ideologies. I think we are getting it wrong even so.
The Second Amendment refers to people, and arms. It does not specify who is meant by the former, or what is meant by the latter.
In other words, no matter how we sanctify the sage counsel of our Founders, we are obligated to interpret it. There is no alternative.
Clearly, we don’t take the Second Amendment to mean that the people have a right to nuclear launch codes, or even lesser, private caches of nuclear weapons. Clearly, we don’t take the Second Amendment to mean that the people should be allowed to stockpile smallpox in their basements. We have arms the Founders likely never dreamed of, but either way, we are obligated to interpret “arms.”
We are no less obligated to interpret “people.” Surely, although they are people, the right does not extend to inmates in our prisons. Surely it does not extend to any given kindergartner on a playground, or their younger sibling in a crib. Surely, it does not extend to psychiatric in-patients.
But the Second Amendment specifies no such exceptions. These are all people, clearly, and thus part of “the people.” And so, arguably, the right in question extends to them all. Yet, we seem to have decided otherwise. Are we defying the Founders?
That we have decided anything at all, about people or arms, is telling. It tells us that we can’t call this all the wisdom of the Founders, and punt. We are interpreting the applications of the Founders to our 21st century reality.
And so it is that the gun debate in America is well advised by an adage from our English progenitors: in for a penny, in for a pound. If the responsibility to interpret the words of the Founders resides with us, even a little, then what we do is not just a product of the Founders’ brilliance. It is also a product of our own muddling efforts to interpret, and apply.
The interpretation that the Founders said just what they meant, and there is no counter argument is, in a word, rubbish. They just said “people,” and “arms.” Our interpretations of both are on flagrant display. That we need to interpret is not theoretical; it’s a done deal.
All that leaves for us to debate, and determine, is: interpret, based on what? If not all conceivable arms for all people all the time, then what restrictions?
I won’t attempt to answer the question here. For one thing, there is no need- the validity of the question is the intended provocation. For another, I have painted a sufficiently bold bulls eye on myself already, with predictable effects. But most importantly, I don’t know the answer, and no one person does. It should best be based on data, such as the recent assessment in JAMA, and adjudicated by good people spanning the ideological spectrum who are actually willing to work hard, and listen to one another.
What that new analysis suggests is that our current interpretation of which arms for what people is costing us dearly, in the treasure of young people’s lives. That seems an invitation to bridge the partisan divide and debate our way to a better interpretation. Instead, the Second Amendment is itself brandished like a loaded gun, and the very idea of interpretation is shot down. But as noted, that part is neither optional nor debatable. We are already interpreting. All that remains is to do so rationally, or irrationally.
Yes, we, the people, have the right to bear arms. But what that means in the real world is that it isn’t just rights that reside with us. It is responsibility, too. It is the application of reason.
We may thank our Founders for the wisdom to impart to us Americans certain inalienable rights. We must acknowledge, however, that the renunciation of reason, the denunciation of sense, and the abdication of responsibility for our misapplications of their wisdom- are certainly not among them.
-fin Dr. David L. Katz;www.davidkatzmd.com; author, Disease Proof; founder, True Health Initiative
