The recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, brought to the surface yet again the tragedy of our gun control policies in the United States. As CNN reported, “There have been at least 134 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, leaving more than 175 people dead and 500 injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).” Guns are now the largest cause of childhood deaths in the United States.
The question for all Americans to answer is: How do we protect all of our citizens from mis-use of firearms while maintaining the spirit of the Second Amendment? It is a question that shines a bright light on deep differences in how Americans define “freedom” and “individual rights” and how politicians—and the arms industry—use those differences to benefit themselves.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear in its intent to ensure that all Americans have the right to have weapons in order to protect themselves and their communities. It 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.
The original intent was to ensure that communities could arm local citizens to protect their community from invasion. However, the gun industry has emphasized owning guns as an individual right, not as a way to protect the community. The issue has become more urgent—and at the same time more complex and less easy to define—as assault rifles and automatic weapons have hit the general marketplace and as guns have been made outside normal industry standards.
What can we do? Some thoughts:
1. With some exceptions for mental health and demonstrated criminal activity, adult citizens of the United States should be permitted to purchase and own a traditional firearm—pistols and/or rifles that are not automated. This should be handled as we have done for over a century with the purchase of automobiles. Guns should be registered and the user should be licensed. Ideally, this would involve no fee or only a minimal fee. The registration and the owner’s license should be renewed on a regular basis, perhaps every five years. If a gun is sold, the license should be transferred, as is the case with an automobile.
2. Citizens should be able to purchase semi-automatic and other assault weapons for community protection, but these should not be available for general use. As weapons of war, their purpose is to protect the community, as described in the Second Amendment. These are not designed for individual hunting or hobby use. One solution is to work in partnership with the National Guard. Citizens who want to have one of these weapons available to them would be able to purchase one and register it with the local National Guard. It would be stored in the local County National Guard armory and available to the registered owner if/when an emergency requires citizens to be armed to protect their communities. The National Guard could arrange for periodic opportunities for training and skills growth.
3. Other weapons of war—bazookas, machine guns, etc.—would not be available to individuals but access would be controlled by the U.S. military.
The challenge for our era is to find a balance between individual rights to bear arms and the community’s right to the safety of individual citizens and public places, like schools, churches, other public venues.
