The eternal political and social dispute over the advisability of continuing to allow the purchase of firearms flared up again in the United States after Tuesday’s mass shooting in Uvalde, south Texas, where a young man killed 19 minors and two adults in a primary school. The legislation that condenses this debate is the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which some consider anachronistic, while others defend it for being, they say, the guardian of their fundamental right.
A few days after his 18th birthday, Salvador Ramos decided to give himself a gift. To celebrate, the perpetrator of the Texas school massacre bought two ‘AR-15’ type rifles, a popular range of semi-automatic weapons.
This gift was easy for him to get: he placed his order at a sporting goods store, completely legally. Despite being something inconceivable in many countries, in the North American nation this practice is considered by many as an untouchable right.
In the case of Salvador Ramos, the consequence of his purchase was 19 children and two teachers killed on Tuesday by the young man in Uvalde, south Texas. They are the latest victims of firearms in the United States, where 17,202 people have died from gunshots since the beginning of this year, according to data from the ‘Gun Violence Archive’.
More civilian weapons than people
Among other alarming numbers, the Swiss organization ‘Small Arms Survey’ reports that there are 120 firearms for every 100 Americans. And if these figures are possible, it is thanks to the famous Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In just 27 words, it guarantees the right of every American citizen to bear arms:
“Being a well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms must not be infringed.”
It is one of the oldest amendments to the Constitution, dating back to 1791. And throughout history, it has been elevated to the category of inalienable individual right, on the same level as freedom of expression, of the press, or of religion. . A vision that the original drafters did not necessarily have.
Indeed, at that time, when the 13 British colonies proclaimed their independence and drafted their Constitution, the Police and the Army were only embryonic. Back then, it was usual for the population to organize militias; that is, groups of armed citizens, to defend the State. In fact, the militias became fundamental during the American Revolution.
Out of fear that a foreign power might try to invade the newborn country, the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution. In the United States, which had just emerged from a war, the fact of carrying weapons was something that no one questioned.
An amendment subject to interpretative debate
However, the modern application of this amendment today provokes a great deal of debate among Americans, and the ambiguity stems mainly from its curious wording.
Indeed, this text was written by the writer William Lambert, and not by a jurist, so it may raise several semantic problems.
First, the notion of the militia has evolved since the American Revolution. Some then argued that the drafters of the 1791 Constitution did not intend to grant citizens the individual right to own arms, but rather to establish a collective right to defense in case of external aggression.
Another tiny detail raises a major dispute: the comma following “Free State.” This punctuation theoretically divides the text into two parts, making the phrase “being a well-regulated militia necessary for the security of a free State” a kind of preliminary fact. The right to bear arms would then be unrelated to belonging, or not, to a militia.
Supporting this claim, an anti-gun group submitted a memorandum in 2001 explaining that the “unusual” use of the comma meant that the amendment’s authors were referring to militias, not individuals; and that in this sense, the right to own a firearm was conditional on the existence of militias.
An anachronistic text that has no validity in an age of automatic weapons
Throughout its 231 years of life, the United States Constitution has never been modified. When asked about this semantic nuance, the Supreme Court defended in 2008 the inalienable right of Americans to bear arms. The section “protects the right of an individual to possess a weapon, regardless of service in a militia, and to use that weapon for a lawful purpose, such as self-defense at home,” the High Court argued at the time.
As the most recent illustration of this debate, on Tuesday, after the massacre in South Texas, the controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, author of the shocking documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine’, questioned whether the founding fathers of the nation had written said amendment of having known the effect that modern bullets, invented almost half a century later, would have.
However, despite numerous debates, in the American reality the main requirement to obtain a gun is still being 18 years old. That is the age, according to federal regulations, to acquire long weapons, such as a shotgun or a rifle; while for short or hand firearms, it is 21 years.
However, the states have the capacity to make this legislation more flexible. Thus, in Alaska, Maine, Minnesota or Vermont, the legal age to buy weapons is 16 years.
The same goes for other requirements to buy weapons: Federal law requires the selling business to check the buyer’s criminal record, but that rule varies from state to state. Therefore, it is, for example, difficult to obtain a gun in Illinois or the District of Columbia, where permits are rarely issued; but Mississippi does not require background checks for private gun purchases.
A reform stalled in Congress
President Joe Biden has long called on the Senate to strengthen gun control, but continuing tensions between Democrats and Republicans make amending the US Constitution impossible.
A Twitter message from a Republican congressman in Florida this week illustrated that bitter battle over gun control in the country. “I have news for the embarrassed man who claims to be our president: try taking up our guns and you will learn why the 2nd Amendment was written in the first place,” wrote Randy Fine, a supporter of former President Donald Trump.
I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.
— Rep. Randy Fine (@VoteRandyFine) May 25, 2022
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was also outspoken in an address on the House floor about the need for gun controls, accusing Republicans of caring more about pleasing the National Rifle Association that of “families grieving victims of gun violence.”
The most powerful lobby in the world
The National Rifle Association, whose goal is to defend the right to keep and bear arms, is considered the most powerful lobbying organization in the world.
It was its 5.5 million members who argued that the ‘Brady Law’, which introduced a five-day period between the purchase and collection of a firearm to prevent “acts of insanity”, was unconstitutional. Three years later, they achieved its repeal by the Supreme Court.
For years, supporters of the Second Amendment have considered this as the consecration of their rights. But those who seek greater regulation of firearms in the United States warn that this right threatens another: the right to life.
With EFE, AFP and local media
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