[Yesterday]
a gunman murdered at least 19 children and 2 adults at Robb Elementary School
in Uvalde, Texas. For years now, after one massacre or another, I have
written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current
gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover
of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the
price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after
the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and
wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.
The
Second Amendment to the Constitution, on which modern-day arguments for
widespread gun ownership rest, is one simple sentence: “A well-regulated
militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the
people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” There’s not a lot to go
on about what the Framers meant, although in their day, to “bear arms” meant to
be part of an organized militia.
As
the Tennessee Supreme Court wrote in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk,
and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would
never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a
private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his
clothes, or a spear in a cane.”
Today’s insistence
that the Second Amendment gives individuals a broad right to own guns comes
from two places. One is the establishment of the National Rifle Association in
New York in 1871, in part to improve the marksmanship skills of American citizens
who might be called on to fight in another war, and in part to promote in
America the British sport of elite shooting, complete with hefty cash prizes in
newly organized tournaments. Just a decade after the Civil War, veterans jumped
at the chance to hone their former skills. Rifle clubs sprang up across the
nation.
By
the 1920s, rifle shooting was a popular American sport. “Riflemen” competed in
the Olympics, in colleges, and in local, state, and national tournaments
organized by the NRA. Being a good marksman was a source of pride, mentioned in
public biographies, like being a good golfer. In 1925, when the secretary of
the NRA apparently took money from ammunition and arms manufacturers, the
organization tossed him out and sued him.
NRA
officers insisted on the right of citizens to own rifles and handguns but
worked hard to distinguish between law-abiding citizens who should have access
to guns for hunting and target shooting and protection, and criminals and
mentally ill people, who should not. In 1931, amid fears of bootlegger gangs,
the NRA backed federal legislation to limit concealed weapons; prevent
possession by criminals, the mentally ill and children; to require all dealers
to be licensed; and to require background checks before delivery. It backed the
1934 National Firearms Act, and parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act, designed to
stop what seemed to be America’s hurtle toward violence in that turbulent
decade.
But
in the mid-1970s, a faction in the NRA forced the organization away from sports
and toward opposing “gun control.” It formed a political action committee (PAC)
in 1975, and two years later it elected an organization president who abandoned
sporting culture and focused instead on “gun rights.”
This
was the second thing that led us to where we are today:
leaders of the NRA embraced the politics of Movement Conservatism, the
political movement that rose to combat the business regulations and social
welfare programs that both Democrats and Republicans embraced after World War
II. Movement Conservatives embraced the myth of the American cowboy as a white
man standing against the “socialism” of the federal government as it sought to
level the economic playing field between Black Americans and their white
neighbors. Leaders like Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater personified the
American cowboy, with his cowboy hat and opposition to government regulation,
while television Westerns showed good guys putting down bad guys without the
interference of the government.
In
1972, the Republican platform had called for gun control to restrict the sale
of “cheap handguns,” but in 1975, as he geared up to challenge President Gerald
R. Ford for the 1976 presidential nomination, Movement Conservative hero Ronald
Reagan took a stand against gun control. In 1980, the Republican platform
opposed the federal registration of firearms, and the NRA endorsed a
presidential candidate—Reagan—for the first time.
When
President Reagan took office, a new American era, dominated by Movement
Conservatives, began. And the power of the NRA over American politics grew. In
1981 a gunman trying to kill Reagan shot and paralyzed his press secretary,
James Brady, and wounded Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and police officer
Thomas Delahanty. After the shooting, then-representative Charles Schumer
(D-NY) introduced legislation that became known as the Brady Handgun Violence
Prevention Act, or the Brady Bill, to require background checks before gun
purchases. Reagan, who was a member of the NRA, endorsed the bill, but the NRA
spent millions of dollars to defeat it.
After
the Brady Bill passed in 1993, the NRA paid for lawsuits in nine states to
strike it down. Until 1959, every single legal article on the Second Amendment
concluded that it was not intended to guarantee individuals the right to own a
gun. But in the 1970s, legal scholars funded by the NRA had begun to argue that
the Second Amendment did exactly that.
In
1997, when the Brady Bill cases came before the Supreme Court as Printz v.
United States, the Supreme Court declared parts of the measure
unconstitutional. Now a player in national politics, the NRA was awash in money
from gun and ammunition manufacturers. By 2000 it was one of the three most
powerful lobbies in Washington. It spent more than $40 million on the 2008
election. In that year, the landmark Supreme Court decision of District of
Columbia v. Heller struck down gun regulations and declared that the Second
Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.
Increasingly,
NRA money backed Republican candidates. In 2012 the NRA spent $9 million in the
presidential election, and in 2014 it spent $13 million. Then, in 2016, it
spent over $50 million on Republican candidates, including more than $30
million on Trump’s effort to win the White House. This money was vital to
Trump, since many other Republican super PACs refused to back him. The NRA
spent more money on Trump than any other outside group, including the leading
Trump super PAC, which spent $20.3 million.
The
unfettered right to own and carry weapons has come to symbolize the Republican
Party’s ideology of individual liberty. Lawmakers and activists have not been
able to overcome Republican insistence on gun rights despite the mass shootings
that have risen since their new emphasis on guns. Even though 90% of
Americans—including nearly 74% of NRA members—support background checks,
Republicans have killed such legislation by filibustering it.
The
NRA will hold its 2022 annual meeting this Friday in
Houston. Former president Trump will speak, along with Texas governor Greg
Abbott, senator Ted Cruz, and representative Dan Crenshaw; North Carolina
lieutenant governor Mark Robinson; and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem—all
Republicans. NRA executive vice president and chief executive officer Wayne
LaPierre expressed his enthusiasm for the lineup by saying: “President Trump
delivered on his promises by appointing judges who respect and value the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights and in doing so helped ensure the freedom
of generations of Americans.”
[Yesterday] President Joe
Biden spoke to the nation: “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why
do we keep letting this happen?... It’s time to turn this pain into action. For
every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to
every elected official in this country, it’s time to act.” In the Senate, Chris
Murphy (D-CT) said, "I am here on this floor, to beg, to literally get
down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues.... find a way to pass laws
that make this less likely."
But it was Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, whose father was murdered by gunmen in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1984, who best expressed the outrage of the nation. At a press conference tonight, shaking, he said, “I’m not going to talk about basketball…. Any basketball questions don’t matter…. Fourteen children were killed 400 miles from here, and a teacher, and in the last ten days we’ve had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California, and now we have children murdered at school.
WHEN ARE WE GONNA DO SOMETHING? I’m tired,
I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated
families…. I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough. There’s 50 senators…who
refuse to vote on HR 8, which is a background check rule that the House passed
a couple years ago…. [N]inety percent of Americans, regardless of political
party, want…universal background checks…. We are being held hostage by 50
senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote despite what we the
American people want…because they want to hold onto their own power. It’s
pathetic,” he said, walking out of the press conference.
“I’ve
had enough.”
—Heather Cox Richardson
Notes:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20220512/president-trump-to-speak-at-2022-nra-annual-meeting...
I support background checks for anyone purchasing a weapon and imposing a waiting period; I support increasing age limits for those purchasing a gun; I support banning high-capacity magazines and modifications on semi-automatic weapons; I support banning semi-automatic and fully automatic assault rifles; I support holding firearms manufacturers of assault rifles legally liable for gun violence; I support red flag laws: legislation that will mandate prohibitions on concealed weapons and possession of firearms by people convicted of violent crimes and people who are considered a public threat; I support banning anyone from owning a weapon on no-fly or watch lists; I also support gun safety at home and keeping weapons away from children and teenagers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, instead of “sweeping” gun control laws that will affect law-abiding responsible citizens who own reasonable self-defense weapons for protection and may conceal and carry those weapons; instead of more political party accusations and useless prayers for the victims, legislators should focus upon and address the causes of violent crimes: domestic white nationalism, racism, bigotry (power, hatred, revenge, anger, notoriety), religious fundamentalism, economic injustice, poverty, unemployment, gang activity, drug trafficking, inefficient law enforcement in high-crime areas, suicide, mental illness and media's perpetuation of violence, fear, demagoguery and xenophobia.
Let’s pursue a policy goal that eliminates so-called “corporate personhood” (Citizens United): this corrupt, unlimited campaign spending from moneymaking, mendacious powers like the NRA and the Koch Brothers, et. al. that funds and coerces Republican legislators to ingratiate them. -Glen Brown