Conservatism is... The Right to Bear Arms
How the Second Amendment Keeps us Safe and Free
Michael Koenig
Last Updated: 12/29/09 Section: Opinion
Several common arguments are offered by politicians and pundits in favor of more stringent gun regulation in the United States. Most of these posit that more regulation will reduce of gun fatalities and violent crime. Yet the issue is more nuanced than these arguments allow, and often tread on the Constitution. To have productive debate we must consider the strong Constitutional and legal arguments that frame and restrict the powers of the government to regulate gun ownership; second, it is necessary that we ensure that regulation that does not unconstitutionally infringe upon these citizens' rights; and finally we must reevaluate our understanding of the nature of violent crime itself. This should help us answer the crucial questions around which the modern debate turns: how much can the government regulate firearms? What parts of the government are allowed to do so? Do guns create a more violent society? Our answers must remain consistently aware of the network of rights and responsibilities which the Constitution holds in balance.
The landmark supreme case, District of Columbia v. Heller, handed down well over a year ago, was the first time the issue of gun rights and the Second Amendment had been addressed directly by the Supreme Court in recent memory - in fact, the right to bear arms had gone largely unaddressed since United States v. Miller in 1939. Heller was a major philosophical victory for gun-rights activists. The opinion of Heller decisively interprets the Second Amendment with regard to future legislation.
What did Heller address? The best way to inform yourself is to bypass all the commentary and punditry and read the Supreme Court's own ruling. Both the majority opinion and both dissenting opinions are relatively uncomplicated, if heavy, reads. The matter at issue was a ban in Washington D.C. covering all bottom-loading handguns, requiring registration of all handguns annually and mandating that they be stored in a non-functional state. The Heller team protested three parts of the handgun ban: the blanket nature of the ban, the registration requirement and the trigger-lock requirement. The court found that the blanket ban and trigger-lock requirement were unconstitutional, because they did not employ the least restrictive means possible to achieve their goal. On the other hand, the Court conceded that registration, if carried out in a non-arbitrary matter, was legal. It was also clear in stating that the ruling does not strike down any current gun regulation based on the status of the gun owner or weapon. The ruling is instructive, though, in informing the wider debate, because it reaffirms the requirement for gun laws to employ narrowly-tailored restrictions which preserve the greatest-possible amount of Second Amendment freedom.
The landmark supreme case, District of Columbia v. Heller, handed down well over a year ago, was the first time the issue of gun rights and the Second Amendment had been addressed directly by the Supreme Court in recent memory - in fact, the right to bear arms had gone largely unaddressed since United States v. Miller in 1939. Heller was a major philosophical victory for gun-rights activists. The opinion of Heller decisively interprets the Second Amendment with regard to future legislation.
What did Heller address? The best way to inform yourself is to bypass all the commentary and punditry and read the Supreme Court's own ruling. Both the majority opinion and both dissenting opinions are relatively uncomplicated, if heavy, reads. The matter at issue was a ban in Washington D.C. covering all bottom-loading handguns, requiring registration of all handguns annually and mandating that they be stored in a non-functional state. The Heller team protested three parts of the handgun ban: the blanket nature of the ban, the registration requirement and the trigger-lock requirement. The court found that the blanket ban and trigger-lock requirement were unconstitutional, because they did not employ the least restrictive means possible to achieve their goal. On the other hand, the Court conceded that registration, if carried out in a non-arbitrary matter, was legal. It was also clear in stating that the ruling does not strike down any current gun regulation based on the status of the gun owner or weapon. The ruling is instructive, though, in informing the wider debate, because it reaffirms the requirement for gun laws to employ narrowly-tailored restrictions which preserve the greatest-possible amount of Second Amendment freedom.
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