Is it time to reconsider the 2nd Amendment?

Roughly four people out of 100,000 are murdered by guns in the United States every year but even more, roughly 10 in 100,000 die from guns from all causes, when including accidents and suicides. These rates are 20 times that of other advanced nations and similar to rates in some of the most lawless places on earth. We lose more Americans to gun violence in 1 month than we have lost in Afghanistan or on D-Day, more than in 2 years than in Vietnam.

It is past time to take strong measures to curb gun violence. Let’s tell congress to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons, close loopholes that allow gun buyers to skirt background checks, restrict high-capacity magazines, institute wide ranging buyback programs and make gun trafficking a federal crime. But I would go one radical step further. Perhaps it is time to repeal the 2^nd Amendment.

The 2^nd Amendment was an eminently reasonable doctrine in the frontier society of the 1790’s when a gun was a basic tool of existence and state militias were self armed. Those days are long past. Today, the 2^nd Amendment, by enshrining gun ownership as a “right” elevates the argument in way that makes reasonable controls more difficult to accomplish and encourages an ethos around guns of religious like authority. It makes our world less safe rather than safer. In the words of one writer, “For many, guns have become a dangerous idol in our time. Like all other idols in human history, they have been invested by some with a power they do not possess: to keep us safe in the "wilderness" of life -- safe from all the unknown dangers and unquantifiable threats of life's journey; from all the murderers, rapists, maniacs and terrorists who represent the always-uncontrollable truth of our fragile existence…all the guns in the world will never "fix" the problem of fear. They will not rescue gun-supporters from a cynical view of humanity, of a need to live in constant hyper-vigilance against our fellow human beings. In fact, they will result in the opposite of the intentions of gun-supporters: They will only increase violence, threats, fears and cynicism.”

We have more controls regarding licensing of cars and drivers than we do regarding guns. Both are potentially dangerous instruments and both are involved in around the same number of deaths each year, but gun licensing is far less restrictive and requires less training than driving.

Let’s be clear, by eliminating gun ownership as a “right”, that does not mean that every gun will be confiscated. States and local governments will have different approaches. I don’t see Utah banning guns in my life time, but if other states or localities have electorates who wish to restrict gun ownership, they should be able to do so.

This is my personal opinion and not necessarily reflective of a consensus of the Summit County Democrats. Your feed back is welcome.

Quote attribution - Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, Huffington Post, 1/7/13