Opinion: The Second Amendment - a Pathetic Excuse for America's Inaction.

By: Mia Korsunsky

In 2019, nearly 40,000 people died as a result of gun violence. That is 40,000 lives lost due to our government’s inability to enact effective and lasting gun reform, 40,000 deaths we could have prevented as a nation. The issue of gun laws is one that can largely be traced back to history and has forever been in conjunction with core American values such as freedom and self-expression. In recent years, as there have been attempts to enact policy, the controversy surrounding gun laws has largely revolved around constituents’ mistaken beliefs regarding their Second Amendment rights. However, it has been over two-hundred years since the Second Amendment was written and added to the constitution, and it is time this outdated amendment becomes a thing of the past. To truly and effectively make change to prevent gun violence and implement greater, much-necessitated gun control, the Second Amendment needs to be modernized and altered, in order to pave the way for a safer, sustainable future for all Americans.

Due to the fact that gun violence has not been addressed properly in our society, it is easy for some to hold the false belief that gun violence is not that pressing of an effect of lax gun laws, however that is blatantly incorrect. US citizens possess some 40% of the world's firearms, despite making up only about 4% of the global population. Guns are incredibly pertinent in the US, and as a result, gun violence follows a similar trend. The US gun homicide rate is 25 times that of other developed nations. Every day more than 100 Americans are killed with guns and 200 more are shot and wounded. There were 417 mass shootings in the US in 2019 alone. Thirty-one of those shootings were mass murders. Gun violence is not a rare occurrence in the US and can directly be attributed to the fact that we let guns into the wrong hands all too often. We teach our children to hide and practice shooter drills before we teach them multiplication. As a nation, we have become desensitized to the fact that we allow tens of thousands of lives to be lost every year because of our government’s inability to act. This figure does not have to be one we just accept and get accustomed to. One life lost to gun violence as a lack of gun control is enough lives lost. 40,000 lives lost every year? There should be no question that we need stricter gun laws and that we need them now.

One of the main reasons that gun violence is such a devastating problem in the US is because of lax restrictions and how easy it is to obtain a gun. At its core, the United States’s policy towards guns fails to adequately ensure that guns do not end up in the wrong hands. Guns are a weapon used for destruction, yet “unlicensed private sellers—those who work online and at gun shows, for example—are not required to conduct background checks on all potential buyers.” (Gorman, Newsweek). Adequate background checks are a necessary part of the gun selling process because they help ensure that guns are not getting into the wrong hands, but when there are not enough regulations, as we are seeing in the status quo, that process slips under the radar and brings along dangerous consequences. What is worse is that even when background checks are actually conducted, they’re rarely conducted at a high standard. “It’s a completely haphazard system — sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t,” said Georgetown University law professor Larry Gostin. “When you’re talking about lives, rolling the dice isn’t good enough.” (PBS) Inadequate background checks are just a single example of the many instances where America’s gun laws are, at best, inefficient but, at worst, deadly. For example, “[m]ore than half the states haven't provided mental health records to the federal database that gun dealers use to check on buyers. And the gap in dealing with the mentally ill is just one of the myriad problems that have hampered background checks” (Tanfani, Governing). A continued lack of enforcement and failure to recognize those unfit to purchase firearms only increases the threat of gun violence facing every single American. As gun control becomes an increasingly partisan issue, there does not seem to be any tangible change on the horizon. As long as that is the case, as a nation, we are condoning those 40,000 lost lives as acceptable casualties every year. Change has to happen.

But what is holding us back as a country from making that tangible reform? It is the gun culture that has formed: gun violence has become a political issue instead of a human issue. This mindset that too many Americans have when approaching the topic of gun control is a huge cause of the embarrassing lack of gun control we have in this country. Americans - incorrectly - cite the Second Amendment as a way to oppose gun control “[b]y using rhetoric that portrays gun control as antithetical to our constitutionally given rights, the NRA’s newer interpretation of the Second Amendment shifted the gun control debate in favor of gun rights activists.” (MIT) This false notion has become so deeply ridden in American conservative beliefs that there is almost always opposition to proposed gun control. What Americans fail to realize is that gun control is necessary to provide safety to every American, not just members of certain political parties. Because of this unfortunate partisanship, legislation purporting gun violence rarely makes it out of our Congress or House, and if it does, gets taken up to the high courts fairly rapidly, where a republican majority can easily overturn such necessary changes. It is this unacceptable culture that we can trace as a large reason that gun laws and reform are so difficult to enact in the United States.

The question then remains: how do we go upon changing the fundamentals of gun culture in the US? That change starts with changing the Second Amendment. That is the freedom that Americans opposed to gun violence often cite as being infringed upon when gun legislation is proposed. However, the Second Amendment is actually commonly misunderstood by those very people. Out of all the Second Amendment claims taken to court, only about 9% of them are ever successful. “Many have suggested that the Second Amendment prohibits further gun regulation. But hundreds of judicial decisions from across the country indicate otherwise. The Second Amendment, as courts have come to interpret it leaves room for a potentially wide range of regulation.” (Vox). This misinterpretation of the Second Amendment is a common misconception that contributes to the mindset that so many people use to protest the establishment of stricter gun laws. However, when you look at what the Second Amendment actually says in the context of when it was written, it becomes clear that citing the amendment is not a valid basis for a modern argument against gun safety. The actual amendment reads “[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.” (Amendment 2) This amendment was written at a time when the government wanted to be able to rely on a citizen militia who had their own weapons. The wording of the amendment in this fashion is outdated and obsolete and does not apply in contemporary society. As long as the second amendment continues to get brought up in modern-day court cases as a way to justify running rampant with rifles, the amendment must be able to uphold modern-day regulations and adapt to modern-day circumstances.

At the time of its adoption, the Constitution was revolutionary. Its Bill of Rights and promise of freedom was something few governments had allotted to their citizens. However, that was in 1796. We are currently living in 2020. If we are not using the same technology as we were in the 18th century, why are we living under the same, outdated legislation? We can still uphold the aspects of our democracy that are so valued in our American culture while reevaluating obsolete policies. It is time we acknowledge the flawed manner of the society we are living in and be proactive while making purposeful change. Without correcting past mistakes we as a society cannot progress forward. We must make sure our generation and future generations can live without fear of gun violence, guaranteeing them safety and security once and for all.

Citations:

Bellisle, M. (2018, March 10). Gun background check system riddled with flaws. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/gun-background-check-system-riddled-with-flaws

U.S. Constitution. Amend. II.

Gorman, M. (2017, June 30). A majority of Americans say it's "too easy" to buy guns, a study has found. Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/too-easy-buy-guns-united-states-630490

Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-polls

Gun Violence in America. (2020, August 03). Retrieved from https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-in-america/

M. I. T. (n.d.). (2014) The Difficulty of Passing Gun Control in the United States. Retrieved from https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/urban-studies-and-planning/11-002j-making-public-policy-fall-2014/assignments/paper-2-gun-control-reform/MIT11_002JF14_pa2stud2.pdf

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Ruben, J. (2018, May 23). The Second Amendment allows for more gun control than you think. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/5/23/17383644/second-2nd-amendment-gun-control-debate-santa-fe-parkland-heller-anniversary-constitution

'Tribune News Service', U. (n.d.). Most States Fail to Provide Gun Background Check Info. Retrieved from https://www.governing.com/news/state/mct-most-states-fail-to-provide-info-for-mentally-ill.html