We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ 2nd Amendment.
Now that H.R. 8 has been filed, I am beginning to see the outlines of the campaign narrative that Gun-nut Nation will employ in an effort to beat back any attempt to implement universal background checks, a.k.a. UBC. Judging from the emails that have come flying in plus comments on various pro-gun blogs and forums, the anti-UBC strategy will embrace two, basic ideas:
(1). Giving the government the power to control what I
do with my private property is a violation of the 5th and 14th
Amendments, which protect private property against unlawful seizure.
(2). Making every gun transfer subject to a background
check will create a national gun registry which will lead to confiscation and
is a violation of the 2nd Amendment.
As to the first argument, that people should be able to
do whatever they want to do with their private property, I only wish that this
had been true when I sold my house in South Carolina but first had to shell out
four thousand bucks to Harold and Willy. Who were Harold and Willy? They were two
guys who showed up after the house was inspected and informed me that the house
couldn’t be sold until they went around and killed all the termites in the
walls and the floors. In other words, we have long accepted the idea that you
can’t just sell your private property to someone else if in so doing, the sale
creates a risk. And even the nuttiest of all gun nuts agrees that selling a gun
to someone who has committed violent crimes creates a risk. That was the easy
one. Now here comes the hard one.
Incidentally, I’m hoping that my friends in the
gun-control movement will use what follows to prepare themselves for the
arguments they might get from the other side. I still have a survey on my website which
asks gun-control advocates 12 simple questions about gun laws (there is the
same survey for people who considers themselves pro-gun advocates) and to date,
I have received 87 responses and the average score of correct answers is 6. So
I hope you’ll read what follows here.
The 2nd Amendment means what the SCOTUS said it meant in the 2008 Heller
decision, the majority opinion written by a dear, departed friend. And what it
means is that keeping a handgun in the home is a Constitutional ‘right.’ Which
means that a state government can pass any gun law it wants, as long as it does
not prevent someone from owning a handgun, assuming they are not considered a
risk to themselves or to anyone else. Who determines whether someone’s
ownership of a handgun might create a risk?
The government. Who determines whether the existence of a particular
type of handgun might create a risk? The
government. And that’s it. That’s what the 2nd Amendment means.
So, for
example, if you live in New York City and a handgun is found in your home and
you cannot produce the requisite paperwork which takes the NYPD Licensing Division about six months to issue on your behalf,
you will be convicted of a felony because New York City decided back in 1912
that you can’t keep a handgun in your home for self-defense, or any other
reason, until the NYPD says it’s
okay. If you go into Court the day of your sentencing and tell the judge that
New York City is abridging your 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’ because you would
have to wait six months to get a permit, I strongly urge you to bring your
toothbrush because you ain’t going home.
Between 1966,
when I bought my first gun, and 2008 when Heller was decreed, I probably bought
and sold at least 500 personally-owned guns. Not one of those transactions had
any Constitutional protection at all. So what? My friends in the gun-control movement
should stop worrying about whether something as timid and non-intrusive as UBC
is a violation of any kind of rights, Constitutional or otherwise. It’s not,
and you can take that one to the bank.
