A common dispute that has been fought over since the formation of the United States is that of gun control. The issue has become more prevalent in the last few years due to ease of access and open ability to purchase guns. As the issue continues to escalate in our society, people begin to ponder questions of how much or how little control there should be over guns, who should regulate it, or even just questioning the lines between what the purpose of owning a weapon consists of. The answer lies not only in these questions but also within the second amendment. Some people believe that the founding fathers set this notion in place to protect the colonists from the possibility of the British attempting to take back the colony. If the above statement is true, then this raises yet another question, what does the second amendment really mean to an American citizen? Looking at the rights of an individual and the affects that other governments have had on their countries will provide the answers to all of the proposed questions.
In order to better understand the reasoning for questioning gun control a person must first track it back to its roots, in this case the second amendment. The original purpose for the second amendment was protection for the American people. The country had just experienced a grueling war with the British and did not want a chance of reinvasion or capture of the newly established country. This would allow for each state to maintain its own miniature army to be able to hold its own ground. Many of the American people mistrusted their own military due to the history of nation’s army’s. Along with their natural European background many of the colonists recalled the history and memories of previous monarchs. Many European monarchs abused the power of the military and often used it as a tool for oppressing the people. Since the people did not have much trust in their own military state militias were formed. Under the direction of an officer, the militias fended off attacks from all different forms of threats including; Indians, revolts from other states, and the occasional thieves or thugs. During that time period among the constitution and the second amendment there were also papers published called the federalist papers. “[the] papers were a series of eighty-five essays urging the citizens of New York to ratify the new United States Constitution. Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the essays originally appeared anonymously in New York newspapers in 1787” (Federalist Papers). The view points of these men provide a way for us to potentially better interoperate and understand what the constitution is really saying about the second amendment.
This being said, the main argument concerning gun control is the interpretation of the constitution itself. The original text of the amendment reads, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed” (GunCite). Directly it is stated within the context that the right of the people shall not be infringed. However, there are many that feel that the context is neither in black or white regions of the moral spectrum. The way the second amendment is proposed makes it very hard to decipher and determine. As David E. Vandercoy stated, “…The Second Amendment to be described recently as the most embarrassing provision of the Bill of Rights.” The issue has become so mainstream that it is embarrassing when brought up in politics because of its inability to determine states or individual rights. The argument of those who are for gun control is that of, “…there is no individual right to keep and bear arms because the Amendment refers to the people’s “collective right,” as members of a well-regulated State militia” (The Flawed Second Amendment Debate). A collective right in this case is portraying that the word “people” in the statement above refers to a group, a militia. “The collective rights interpretation, argues that the Bill of Rights provides no protection for an individual right to own guns. Such a right might exist under particular state constitutions, but the Second Amendment is about the militia and nothing else” (The Second Amendment Under Fire). In a court case of Miller vs. the United states we see two men who were arrested for possessing sawed off shotguns. The judges felt that there was no use or reason for the men to be carrying these kind of weapons. “The U.S. Supreme Court held that “in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. (The Second Amendment Under Fire). The judges basically took the statement of the shotguns and stuck it within the second amendment. While they think the shotguns had no use in “persevering or progressing a well regulated militia”, they fail to see the point that it is not the right of the militia but the individual to bear and keep his arms. This is a perfect example of how easily the constitution can be manipulated to fit an agenda or a personal opinion.
The flip side of the collective right is the individual right. The belief that the phrasing of “the people” is in no way shape or form related to the word “militia” in the later context of the statement. It was accepted that of 2008 that the wording of the second amendment was not to be challenged and meant exactly what it stated. “For the sophisticated collective rights model to be viable, the word ‘people’ must be read as the words ‘members of a select militia.’ The individual rights model, of course, does not require that any special or unique meaning be attributed to the word ‘people.’ It gives the same meaning to the words ‘the people’ as used in the Second Amendment phrase ‘the right of the people’ as when used in the exact same phrase in the contemporaneously submitted and ratified First and Fourth Amendments” (Court Shoots Down Collective Rights Theory). Looking even deeper at a collective vs. individual right we find that, there are approximately 260 million privately owned guns in the United States. It is a fact that between forty and fifty percent of all households report a firearm in the home. There are over 80,000 federally licensed gun dealers in America, and in nearly all jurisdictions in America, any law-abiding adult is permitted to own a firearm. What I fail to understand is if this many people own guns privately how can it possibly be a “collective” right? Since the very beginning people have owned guns and all it has done is increase. If the second amendment was meant to be interoperated as a collective right it acts like an individual right. After all wasn’t the entire bill of rights made to protect the people and inform them of their rights? The first amendment protects a person’s freedom of religion; to indulge in what they feel is morally correct. The third protects our homes from military invasion. The fourth protects the person’s rights against unreasonable searches and seizure and so on. All of the seven amendments are directed toward the individual person. None of them are directed at a “Collective group”. With the case of the second amendment settled in the past year anti-gun advocates now argue the point of even allowing citizens to continue to bear arms due to the fact that they think guns have little use in today’s society. What many of these citizens and scholars alike continue to miss is the way we are meant to see the constitution. Some feel that the constitution is not to be interpreted while others feel that the frame can be bent to fit their specific outlook on a topic, in this case their belief in stronger gun control or complete removal of weaponry from the people.
While we do not experience situations such as the American Revolution in the United States today, many citizens feel that there are similar situations where their right to continue to bear arms is completely necessary. There are countless examples of rape, murder, and robbery that both justify and denounce the thinking of allowing citizens to continue the right to bear arms. While understanding that millions of lives have been negatively affected by guns there is one thing we must remember, “It’s not guns that kill people, its people that kill people.” A good example of just one of the many negatively affected lives is the story of Suzanna Gratia-Hupp. Her father and mother were murdered before her eyes and the only chance she had of saving them was to stop the raving lunatic shooting everyone in the restaurant. She may have lost her parents but continues to believe that it was “not the gun that walked in and shot those people, it was the man behind the gun” (a daughter’s regret).
“On October 1991 an unemployed merchant seaman drove his pickup truck into a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., leaped out of his car and opened fire. He killed 23 people and wounded more than 20. Hupp and her parents were having lunch in the restaurant when the shooting started. Hupp instinctively reached into her purse for her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, but she had left it in the car. Her father tried to rush the gunman and was shot in the chest. As the gunman reloaded, Hupp escaped through a broken window, thinking her mother was behind her. But Hupp’s mother had crawled alongside her dying husband of 47 years to cushion his head in her lap. Police later told Hupp they saw her mother look up at the gunman standing over her, then bow down before he shot her in the head” (a daughter’s