Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Berger, an English teacher at Weathersfield School, who writes “Poor Elijah’s Almanack.” The column appears in several publications, including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald and the Stowe Reporter.
[F]ive years ago in the wake of Sandy Hook, a plaintive headline begged, “Can we now talk about guns?” It was written in response to the perennial admonishment that the grief-stricken, furious aftermath of tragedy isn’t the best time to craft firearms regulations.
That advice sounds sensible. However, nobody recommended we postpone dealing with Japan for a few months because we were grieving and angry after Pearl Harbor. Zeal and rational thought aren’t mutually exclusive.
The president, our prince of empty superlatives, ducks any meaningful questions while he tosses us a few totally’s and incredible’s. Paul Ryan urges that we “pray,” “take a breath and collect the facts.” He and other Second Amendment partisans warn against politicizing the issue.
I pray, and I try to base what I think and do on facts. But how many more facts about mass shootings, at school and elsewhere, do we need? And how many more prayers in the absence of action will we have the gall to offer parents grieving over the bodies of their children.
Politics is supposed to be more than an exercise in self-exculpatory rhetoric. It’s more than jockeying for ideological advantage. It’s the application of government power to problems we share.
In short, it’s time we do politicize this issue.
I’m a constitutionalist. By that I mean I have more confidence in the government created by Madison and Washington than in any regime Trump and Ryan could hatch.
The Second Amendment wasn’t adopted to benefit hunters and gun collectors. It was intended to enable citizens to protect themselves and their republic against enemies, foreign and domestic. I believe it establishes an individual right to keep and bear arms. But I also believe that its neglected first half, the part that talks about a “well-regulated” militia, plainly allows the government that we the people appoint to make rules and regulations about gun ownership and use.
For heaven’s sake, “well-regulated” is part of the amendment.
Americans particularly concerned about their prerogative to own guns worry about a “slippery slope” where one rule leads to another until their right disappears. I’m sympathetic. The First Amendment is especially dear to me, and I’ve got my slippery slope fears and arguments, too.
Except the fact is Congress, meaning the government, can and has made laws that restrain speech. I can’t slander you, for example. Speech that poses a “clear and present danger” can also be restricted.
In the same way, we already have restrictions on gun ownership. FDR and Ronald Reagan both signed laws limiting automatic weapons. Eleven states have banned the sale or possession of armor-piercing bullets. Nobody tows a howitzer down the supermarket aisle. You can’t buy a shoulder-launched nuclear weapon at Dick’s.
Nothing in the Constitution is meant to be interpreted in the absence of reason and common sense. No one would argue that the First Amendment’s protection of the “free exercise” of religion guarantees an American Aztec’s right to offer human sacrifice. That’s because his right to practice his religion is outweighed by his victim’s unalienable right to life.
No right is absolute. The Second Amendment exists in a context, not a vacuum. It isn’t above all other rights.
Yes, Jefferson was clear that our government was instituted to protect our rights. But those rights extend beyond the right to bear arms.
The question isn’t whether we can regulate gun ownership and use. Reason and the language in the Second Amendment itself tell us we can. In fact, that language imposes a responsibility to well-regulate ourselves.
The only question before us is what additional regulations are advisable.
To determine that, we need to identify costs and benefits. What’s the benefit in allowing bullets that can pierce a police officer’s vest? What’s the benefit in permitting private citizens to own assault weapons? Who do outsized magazines and bump stocks help?
I appreciate the argument that lawbreakers won’t respect gun laws, and that law-abiding citizens should be able to protect themselves. It’s true that no course of action will eliminate every bad act. We have laws against drunk driving, and people still drive drunk. But we can’t shrink from making laws just because some people won’t obey them, especially when we repeatedly witness the devastating result of broadly unrestricted gun ownership.
We have problems. Many American homes, using our bloodless word for it, are dysfunctional. Many American children suffer as a result.
At the same time we’ve spent two generations stroking our children’s self-esteem. In the process we’ve stunted their power to deal with adversity. We talk about grit and resiliency, but for many every slight and turn that doesn’t go their way is an affront and a violation that warrants retribution. In extreme cases that retribution is extreme.
At school, passing bandwagon discipline theories, “trauma-based” classroom practices, and anti-bullying programs trade in smug nonsense. Gun violence at school should outrage us, but we should also be outraged by the expert-approved trauma students suffer every day at the hands of violent, disruptive peers.
Commentators focus on the vulnerability of another “soft target” school, and schools need to take prudent precautions against foreseeable hazards. But school security isn’t the problem. Besides, schools should never be fortresses. It’s their nature to be soft targets because children live there.
Critics, including President Trump, pillory the FBI for its apparent failure to follow up on reports that foreshadowed the Parkland killer’s rampage. As tragic as that lapse may be, it wasn’t a deliberate act.
The same cannot be said about the law that same president deliberately signed that repealed restrictions on a “mentally defective” applicant’s ability to purchase a gun. The same cannot be said about the Senate’s deliberate vote permitting subjects on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns. The same cannot be said about gun lobbyists’ deliberate efforts, and many legislators’ willing susceptibility to their persuasion and their contributions.
Our gun violence problem has many roots. But it’s long past time when we can pretend that part of our gun problem isn’t guns.
