The Right to Bear Arms: A Perspective on the 2nd Amendment

Originally posted on 12/15/12 on www.helenpartlow.com

December 14, 2012 will be known as a day of mourning.  Twenty children and six adults were mercilessly shot down at a school in Newtown, CT.  It was such a horrible day of tragedy, mourning, and sadness for our country.  There is nothing more tragic that a parent can experience other than losing a child at such  a young age in a senseless, heartless fashion.  Two guns were found inside the school, a Glock and a Sig Sauer as well as a third, a .223 caliber rifle, that was found in the car that the suspect, Adam Lanza, had driven to the school.

The question of the hour once again becomes, can stricter gun control laws help prevent a tragedy like this from occurring?

Less than 6 months ago there was the shooting in Aurora, CO where people were gunned down at a movie theater premiering the latest Batman movie.  In 1999, the infamous Columbine school shooting occurred.  Sadly enough, these mass murders keep on happening.  In an address to the nation, a tearful President Barack Obama is calling for meaningful change. 

The Second Amendment's right to bear arms states that "[a] well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  

In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment extends to an individual right to possess guns for self-defense purposes within one's home.  It was the first case to address if the right to bear arms extended to the individual person.  In the Supreme Court's summary in  Heller, they stated that "[w]e are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution."  

The Court goes on further to explain that the Constitution's protections take certain policy choices off the table --  "[u]ndoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States allows the individual states to enact laws in gun control but it is obvious that a complete ban would be found unconstitutional, as outlined in Heller.

Specifically in Connecticut, this state was found to have one of the lowest gun death rate in the country, according to the Violence Policy Center, as of April 2012. The VPC found that "The analysis reveals that the five states with the lowest per capita gun death rates were Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Each of these states had a per capita gun death rate far below the national per capita gun death rate of 10.19 per 100,000 for 2009. Each state has strong gun laws and low gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with weak gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership had far higher rates of firearm-related death. Ranking first in the nation for gun death was Louisiana, followed by Wyoming, Alabama, Montana, and Mississippi."

Unfortunately, even if Connecticut is one of the states with the lowest  gun death rate in the country, this did not stop the merciless killings in Newtown, CT.  

In a more broader perspective, no matter what side a person is on in the gun control debate, events like this makes one think to a more common and basic teaching – that our country and the world that we live in has to become more loving and tolerant of one another.  That friend and family units have to become stronger and perhaps – just perhaps – a random act of kindness might have a ripple effect, resulting in a bigger impact than one would ever suspect. 

No matter what side you are on in this debate, both sides are mourning this horrible event in U.S. history.