When I made this blog, I, like most people, started it with the intention of writing weekly. Obviously I don’t have that level of commitment. But for the past few months I’ve been needing an outlet to talk about politics, because most people don’t think throwing out the question of who does and does not support gun control – like I did at my Winter Formal dinner junior year – is funny nor make friends doing so. Anywho! What a nice segue into gun control.
Every time I get aggressive cravings for chocolate, I annoy my dad until the rare occasion in which he gives me money. He says, “My wallet’s in my car under the middle seat.” I force myself to put on pants, climb in the truck decorated with cigar ash, pull up the middle seat, and I see it. His tiny hand gun provoking and staring at me. I know more than anyone that my dad would only ever use that gun if absolutely necessary, and that the only other gun he owns is for hunting deer. I know that many Americans are the same way. It’s nice knowing that not everyone with a gun is a mass murderer!
When debating with him on this topic, it all goes back to the 2nd amendment – as I’m sure it does for many others. It is not that all gun owners desperately need a gun: it is never about guns, and it never will be about guns. It all traces back to the right of a law-abiding citizen to own a gun, because that is what the Founding Fathers supposedly laid out for this country. One can say all the death tolls from firearms possible, tell every heartbreaking story, but it all comes down to the government infringing on people by “abolishing” the 2nd amendment. If anything, the government only gets bigger and gains more executive power once the majority voice of the public is ignored because the interest of their parties come first.
Thomas Jefferson, the primary writer of the Constitution (along with others), is the person many pro-gun believers swear by because of his firm belief in the liberty of all people and his pro-gun opinions, which is true. Another way of saying it is: Jefferson wrote the Constitution, and explicitly said that men can keep and bear arms in the Constitution. We live by the Constitution. Therefore, we can have guns. Jefferson revolved around a people-driven government and Constitution, not necessarily morals. Obviously he didn’t revolve around morals because he was a pretty shitty person by today’s standards. However for the sake of debating over the Constitution and political philosophy, I will be using the same man who wrote the Constitution, his own words, and his same philosophy of government to promulgate why gun regulation during a time such as this is necessary, and, arguably, that good ole TJ would even agree with me.
In his letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1816, Jefferson wrote:
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and demo them like the ark of the covenant, too scared to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… But I know also the laws and institutions must go hand-in-hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change in circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Jefferson points out multiple things in this that are not only rarely heard, but also rarely thought of (at least that I never thought about before). Doing what they did by declaring independence and setting up our government wasn’t anything beyond an amendment, a change, to what was in place, because their colonies were progressing and growing. Jefferson recognized that the human mind – therefore society as a whole – will progress in the future, because that is exactly what happened during his time. In fact, what they did was far more radical in comparison to amending the 2nd amendment. They did a 180 degree turn and revamped the way the government worked. The Constitution was written as the original, unedited set of laws applicable to their circumstance, Jefferson knowing well that “with the change in circumstances, institutions must advance also.” The Constitution’s amendments are literally called “amendments” because they are a change from the law before, and the reason we have created new amendments over the years is because our law is meant to be amended as the people evolve.
Jefferson knew there would be advances: he wasn’t a psychic so he couldn’t specify the advancement of guns; but, he knew that there would be new discoveries (AKA technology) made, and that institutions must keep up with it. He used the analogy of making a man wear the same coat he wore as a kid and compared it to requiring Americans to follow the same laws like a coat from the past even though it doesn’t fit anymore. Is gun control policy not clearly analogous to the evolution over time in both the usage and abilities of guns?
“Guns” at the time generally made self-defense a lot harder with the amount of difficulty it took to reload, its weak accuracy, and short distance. A good shooter can fire 45 rounds per minute using an AR-15 now, whereas a musket could’ve fired 3 or 4 per minute (sources at the end). What change is implied between those two guns? One kills a lot faster, a lot easier, and a lot better in general than the other. Not to mention that battles were fought in people’s own backyard, so the regular man owning a gun was most likely necessary. One thing I always find shocking about the Boston Massacre is that as elementary students, we learned about it like it was a bloodbath, just as the name “massacre” would imply. What was considered a massacre then was the death of five colonists, which had to be done through militia. Last night in Las Vegas, the death of more than 50 people and hundreds of injuries happened because of one man and one gun. Over twenty children have died while pursuing the right of education and friendship because of one man and one gun. These are just to name a few. Have these circumstances not changed enough for the institutions to keep up with it?
The analogy he used in describing people’s approach to the law as “like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched” is an amazing analogy to the idealization of the intent of previous leaders, as if they had “wisdom more than human.” If our Constitution is meant to be unedited, unchanged, and “too sacred to be touched,” then 18-year-olds, women, people of color, and anyone who doesn’t own property should say goodbye to their right to vote, because the original Constitution put restrictions on that. Putting Jefferson’s love of guns in the context of his ultimate vision and principle of people being able to guide the laws of society, it makes the question of whether or not we the people have this divine right to alter our sacred Constitution to regulate gun ownership easy to answer.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…”
In a nation that prides itself off of freedom of expression and thought, security, and diversity, you’d think that since death by firearms has been normalized and what we do now isn’t working that we would change something. It’s time to start realizing that we are not only allowed to change something, but it’s necessary for our evolving country.
Sources:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets/
g.s. journal 