Man, you’ve got to love New Jersey’s gunnies. Like
their Eagle-loving brethren in the other great states of the Nugent Republic,
they feel the need to carry, load, polish, write about, blog over, buy, sell,
massage, aim and shoot their constitutionally protected, sacred firearms. I
know these people well. I used to be one of them. And before I go into an
entire explanation of their beliefs and their vision for America’s future, I
want to start off with a very, very important statement. Though their view of history is skewed and their interpretation of the
U.S. Constitution is faulty, on legal grounds, they’re winning. They’re
winning big-time. And the people of
New Jersey need to know there is a very good chance that, using recent U.S.
Supreme Court precedents, the Gunnies are very
close to achieving most if not all
of their goals right here in the Garden State.
What are their goals? In
short, to completely deregulate firearms,
aside from automatic weapons (yes, even most Second Amendment lovers agree that
machine guns are not protected by the
Bill of Rights). This vision amounts to the ability of any adult to freely
purchase, store, and carry unconcealed, loaded firearms on their person.
Everywhere. Anytime. And to their credit, they do not make this a secret.
First, let’s take their
constitutional philosophy. They embrace a rather selective interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. That amendment states, if you haven’t read it in a zillion other
places already, the following:
“A well regulated militia,
essential to the security of a free state; the right of the people to keep and
bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
The amendment was drafted
by James Madison, the Father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in the
late 1790’s. Madison was a very smart guy, a true legal genius. We need to read
his words assuming that he knew what
he was writing and talking about. So what did
he mean? Did he mean that Americans have the right to have and carry firearms?
Was he defining this right along the lines of the First Amendment, where he
clearly stated, “Congress shall make no
law…” abridging the freedom of the press, petition, assembly, and worship?
In my opinion, he was not.
Absolutely, straightforward, not.
Again, we need to
understand that when he drafted the Bill of Rights, and the Congress and States
approved of it, there were plenty of opportunities for changes, deletions and
commentaries. So our final result must be taken for what it is. The Second
Amendment does not state that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. It
has a clause that does contain such a right, but is dependent on that right
being exercised when one is part of a “well regulated militia.” It’s ironic,
that the Gunnies of today so disdain regulation
when this very portion of the Constitution states it so plainly.
Okay, so what was the
militia? Was it simply all the people, or at least, as understood at the time,
all armed, white male adults? No. It was not.
In the original 13 states,
“the militia,” which were not the equivalents
to the modern-day, federally controlled National Guard, were similar. A militia was a
state’s official armed force. It had ranks, rules and regulations. Militias were
under state command (usually the governor or one of his appointees) and were
not, ever, the counterpart to hunting
or beer drinking gangs of good ol’ boys. They were meant for serious business, from keeping the
public order to preventing and fighting Indians, foreign invasions, and in the South,
Slave revolts. They were official collective
entities and lawful bodies that placed genuine and comprehensive
requirements on their members, from training to mandatory call-ups for action. For
the most part, they do not exist anymore in their original forms.
In some state miltias men
could use their own firearms, in others, firearms would be provided for them.
They and their members were protected by the rules of war. Again, these
organizations were not individual clubs, but state-regulated bodies. A citizen
could not just show up one day during a crisis and say, “Hey, I’m a member of
this militia because I have a gun, so let’s get this thing started!” It did not work like that. There were rosters,
lists, levels, orders, etc.
So the idea that Madison
simply wrote of a right where everyone could keep and bear arms isn’t factual. If he wanted such a right to be recognized,
he would have said so. He meant that any idea of keeping and bearing
firearms would only be protected within the organization of not a private army, but a “well
regulated” government militia.
Okay, so perhaps you agree
with what I just wrote. Perhaps you disagree. For the entire 20th
century, the Supreme Court agreed with my interpretation of the Second
Amendment. They don’t anymore, and this is where things get interesting, and
potentially dangerous.
In 2008 the United States
Supreme Court handed down one of its landmark decisions from its secure,
pearly-white marble temple in D.C.
Dubbed D.C. v. Heller,
the High Court straightforwardly stated, and left no doubt, absolutely zero
doubt, that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was a personal one. Yes, it could be subject
to some limitations; guns could be barred from courthouses and perhaps schools,
but gun ownership and gun bearing was an adult right. That was their opinion,
and whether you or I like it or not, it is the Supreme Law of the Land. Just
like the High Court struck down racial segregation in the 1950’s, just like it
recognized abortion rights in the early 1970’s, it has stated that the right to
keep and bear arms is a personal one. Supreme Court case law is complex but it is
not a salad bar. You cannot pick and choose from its decisions. You need to
take it as a whole.
New Jersey, today, has
some of the most comprehensive gun control laws on the books. To “keep and bear
arms” a state resident must get a series of permits, starting with a “Permit to
Purchase.” You cannot even touch a
firearm at one of the state’s gun shops or shows unless you possess this
permit, which is very difficult to get and requires a series of expensive and
comprehensive background checks at the local and state levels.
I’m going to be honest
with you here. Regardless of all the other gun laws on the books in our state, the
permit requirements are the real
heart of the gun control system. If New Jersey’s permit system is ever
overturned you will see guns for sale at every Walmart, Target and strip mall.
You will see armed citizens exercising their right to “open carry” on every
road, at every public park and beach, in every business, in every shopping mall
and convenience store. If you don’t believe me, you don’t have to…just ask
anyone from Florida.
The Heller case has since
been expanded by the Supreme Court and there is no reason to think that the
Court will reverse itself on this core issue. The Gunnies won in the highest
court in the land, hands down.
So where does this leave
us, those that support sanity in
firearms law?
We Americans that support
gun control or even gun bans need to be realistic. We need an amendment to the Federal Constitution. Perhaps it is
unrealistic to think that we could repeal the entire Second Amendment. But at least we
should start pressing for an amendment that leaves such interpretations up to
the states or other localities. If people in Texas and Louisiana want to
believe that God and Moses and George Washington gave them the right to keep
and carry a gun, and they want to write that into their state and local laws,
then fine. But a majority of people in the state of New Jersey do not feel that
way and never have. I do not believe
that Madison ever intended the interpretation of this ‘right’ to go this far,
and additionally, the firearm he was writing about was the clumsy musket, not the contemporary
semi-automatic pistol or assault gun. You cannot
kill 25 hysterical, fleeing children in under three minutes with a musket, and you never
could. With a 9mm pistol and some spare ammunition, if murder is your
intention, the sky’s the limit.
Again, to sum it all up,
you can mock the Gunnies. You can call them hicks and rednecks. You can say
that they’re nuts, and some of them are, but their 'personally oriented' interpretation of the Second
Amendment is law. So let’s deal with this issue from this new perspective and
stop arguing over the Second Amendment. Otherwise, we’ll never stop the bullets
from flying.
