The Right to Bear Arms

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitutions states that, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people t keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Since the Second Amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, there has been a heated debate over whether the Second Amendment recognized the possession and use of guns only while in the service of the military or whether it created an individual right that gave every American the right own and use firearms.

In June of 2008, the United States Supreme Court finally ended the debate on this question when it ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and the use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. The specific law in question was a District of Columbia law that required that weapons kept at home must be unloaded and disassembled or equipped with a trigger lock. The Supreme Court ruled that such requirements make it impossible for citizens to use firearms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and therefore was unconstitutional.

But certain limits can be placed on who can own or carry a weapon. For instance, the Supreme Court held that the State can ban ownership of or carrying of a firearm by a convicted felon or by a person who is mentally ill. The Supreme Court ruled further that laws can ban the presence of guns in sensitive areas, such as schools and government buildings.

While many people feel safe and comforted by the thought that they have a loaded gun in their nightstand to use against any intruder, the sad fact is that, rather than being used to stop an assailant, the guns are used on family members and guests. For instance, many shootings occur when a child gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or get a snack to eat. The father hears a noise coming from the living room, grabs the loaded gun from the nightstand or under his pillow, sees a shadow in the living room, and starts shooting, killing his innocent child before the child has time to identify himself or herself.

Not keeping a loaded gun out of reach of young children can lead to other disastrous results as well. For example, if the father keeps his loaded gun on the nightstand or in a drawer where his 7-year-old son knows where it is, and the 7-year-old boy has a friend over and are playing “cops and robbers,” the young boy may get the gun, point it at his playmate, and, not knowing the gun is loaded or appreciate how dangerous it is, pull the trigger, killing or seriously injuring the other boy.

So the United States has ruled that an individual has the right to keep a loaded, assembled, non-locked firearm in his or her home. But we must exercise extreme caution when availing ourselves of that right to protect innocent victims from being harmed or killed. All gun owners should be required to take a course in gun safety to prevent family members and guests from being injured or killed. However, requiring that a person take such a safety class as a prerequisite to owning and possessing a gun would probably be held unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court.

It seems that we hear every day on the nightly news of a shooting by a gang member. Most often, rather than a member of an opposite gang being shot, the bullet kills an innocent person, often a young child playing in his or her yard, or even sitting in the house watching television or doing his or her homework. There is no legitimate reason for gang members to possess firearms, and the law should recognize this fact. It is about time that police spend a significant amount of their time and money in protecting innocent people from being shot and seriously wounded or killed by a gang member who tries to argue that, under the Second Amendment, his gun cannot be taken away from him.

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