US 2nd Amendment
Thursday, November 16th, 2006The second Amendment says. “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.”
I am not a USian, but I read a lot of US news. One thing that has never made a whole lot of sense to me is the fanatic defence of one interpretation of the 2nd Amendment: the right to bear arms is independent of the need to be part of a militia.
As I see it there are three major reasons for the 2nd Amendment.
Protection from external threat
Given the history of the US, particularly its founding, this makes some sense. However with the combination of today’s weaponry and current US weapons regulations, this doesn’t make sense. At the time the constitution was framed land based weapons were largely limited to muskets, swords, cannons and limited oiwer explosives. However today land based equipment includes tanks, armoured vehicles and (far improved) artillery. This is before we begin to talk about aircraft.
Under current US laws you are able to own semi automatic weapons, new automatic weapons are not permitted. Looking at the infantry man of today as compared to 200 odd years ago, today infantry carry light and heavy machine guns, assault rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and mortars. 200 years ago they carried a musket. Some of the logistical tools (radios, vehicles) are available to civilians, however this does not change the fact that there is a very significant disparity between equipment available to the military when compared to civilians, a far greater disparity than existed 200 years ago. In addition one of the greatest tools in the arsenal of an army is training. This enables soldiers to react to difficult and stressful situations.
How would US citizens fight against a well armed and trained foe using WW2 era automatic weapons and AR-10s? Examining the current (relatively successful) insurgency in Iraq as an example. Insurgents are fighting US and Iraqi forces using mortars, rpgs, automatic weapons and IEDs built from available explosives, including artillery shells. I can’t imagine that it would be quite so successful with more limited weapons.
Protection from government
One of the prime arguments against this is the same argument against foreign powers: the disparity in power. How long would US citizens last against the US army when backed by the power of the courts.
One argument I have often heard is that the army would be fighting their own citizens. This is a very valid argument, soldiers are less likely to follow orders if you empathise with or know the people will suffer as a result of those orders.
In that case, what is the need for the arms? The real protection is that the army is made up of the very citizens they might be oppressing.
Self defence
This is the most valid of all the defences for the 2nd Amendment in my opinion. However I do feel that that the underlying assumption is that criminals are well armed and law abiding citizens need arms to protect themselves from criminals. Taking that as a given it would be best if law abiding citizens had guns and criminals did not, shifting the arms disparity in favour of the law abiding citizens.
However the US doesn’t seem to want take some of the logical steps to reduce the guns in the hands of criminals. Some steps they could take are:
- Implement gun registration schemes at a federal level, including mandatory training
- Enact heavy penalties for anyone carrying an unregistered gun
- Put in place a gun buyback scheme for unlicensed guns
- Consider limiting the sale of guns to convicted criminals
Ironically many of these would be opposed as it supposedly runs counter to the 2nd Amendment.