The Myth of the Law-Abiding Gun

[billh58]

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When a car is transferred from one owner to another, the state must be notified as title is exchanged. Prescription drugs cannot be legally transferred to another person once they are assigned to a registered user at a pharmacy. What is wrong with either of these models when it comes to guns?

Gun rights enthusiasts will (properly) point out one respect in which guns are different: Unlike cars, drugs, or jets, the right to possess a gun is constitutionally protected. The Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found a personal right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, represented a remarkable change — for the first time, the Court found that the Constitution expressly allows the possession of specific type of object. This does give firearms a special status. However, the bare fact that gun possession is a remarkably specific and personal right does not bar a program of registration (as with cars) or non-transferability (as with drugs) connected to all gun sales. The majority opinion in Heller itself established that nothing in that opinion “should be taken to cast doubt on... laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of guns.” Requiring universal background checks or even establishing a registry of who has bought a gun is well within that limit.

It is constitutionally permissible for states to ban the sale and possession of marijuana, self-serve gas, cars that pollute, or radar detectors. Heller enshrined in law the anomaly that guns alone are immune from such treatment, but that does not absolve governments from the responsibility to protect citizens from gun violence. Registration and tracking of guns will further the cause of making sure that guns are sold to and stay with the “law-abiding” citizens gun proponents talk about.

When a young man in California kills himself with a gun, or a child in Chicago is shot, or a gang member in Miami grabs a pistol and sets out in search of revenge, the constitutional right to possess a gun for self-protection is subverted. The gun is now being used for destruction. Requiring background checks and empowering law enforcement to match up people with guns serves to protect the right to possess a gun for self-protection, not endanger it. In the end it is people, not guns, which are law-abiding, and reasonable regulation of guns imperils none of our rights as citizens.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-osler/law-abiding-gun-owners_b_3112237.html

The right-wing gun culture stubbornly maintains that everyone in the USA is entitled to carry a gun until such time as they have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt after-the-fact that they ARE a danger to themselves or others. The reason that other dangerous objects and substances are regulated is to prevent misuse and endangerment BEFORE they become a threat to the public's general well being and health.

The equation is simple: guns are designed to kill, and all other uses are ancillary. While self-defense is an inherent right, the Second Amendment was written for the "defense of a free state," and not the defense of an individual.

There are too many guns in our society, and are "kept and borne" by too many people who should not have them. Thorough background checks (including at the local level for anti-social behavior), and registration to track the movement of lethal weapons will go a long way in reducing the level of gun violence on our streets.