"A Right to Bear Arms"

"The President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Parino, in reaction to the worst school massacre in U.S . "But," Miss Parino said, brightly, "all laws must be followed."

In the wake of this killing, we'll see the usual freak show. First will come the condolences from the Comforter in Chief, a blue ribbon panel, and perhaps a special on the Discoverer Channel. And then the NRA will trot out their usual talking points, the same ones that Ronald Reagan used after he was shot by another love-lorn kid. But nothing fundamental will change, and the killings and the terror will continue in this country that is awash in guns and violence, which perhaps at some diabolic level is precisely what this administration wants.

And what does the administration want as far as gun laws are concerned? It certainly is not an armed citizenry. When Hurricane Katrina and Rita struck New Orleans, police and national guard troops went from house to house confiscating guns on the orders of FEMA. But, in the meantime, Bush wants to feed its political base the red meat of gun ownership.

"I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon," said John McCain hour after the shootings. I doubt that the senator means that the insane, children, and criminals are entitled to that right. Bush may have no such qualms in restricting gun ownership to Texan children, a point that a reporter raised at Parino's White House briefing.

The Second Amendment reads as follows:

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.

My reading of the plain text is that the constitution places gun ownership in the context of a militia, which must be well-regulated and necessary to the security of a free state. In other words, it should be read subjunctively-- if you are in the militia, they will be no infringement on your right to have a gun. This right turns on how we define militia. If we define it narrowly, a militia is essentially the national guard. Or can we define it to include all citizens, whether they be liquor store owners or duck hunters? A strict constuctionist definition derives more likely from the former interpretation.

And then there is the question as to what is an arm. A slingshot? A thermonuclear bomb? In United States v. Miller, the Supreme Court sustained a statute requring regulation of sawed of shot guns under the National Firearms Act, noting that ''[i]n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well- regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.'' Since this decision, Congress has placed greater limitations on the receipt, possession, and transportation of firearms.

My hunch is that the events that transpired at Virgina Tech will not give impetus to increased regulation and confiscation of firearms using the same argument. It will, however, erode a right that isn't explicitly defined in the constitution-- the right to privacy. It is exceedingly rare that this kind of violence is the result of someone snapping. Rather, inevitably, the person that commits such atrocities doesn't whisper a warning-- he broadcasts it. Sulleness, hatefulness, feelings of depression, morbidity, helplessness, depersonalization, and hostility are the hallmarks of such killers. But so are they the hallmarks of creative and harmless people as well. Consider the one-act play that Cho Seung-Hui, the campus killer, wrote. It's vulgar and sophomoric, but no more so than the efforts of many vulgar sophomores. The upshot of the violence in Virginia will be I believe more conformity and less privacy while national policy towards gun ownership will remain unchanged.