The Second Amendment is in jeopardy, but not for the reason you might suspect. While some gun control advocates have called for its repeal, they do not endanger it. The greatest threat to the Second Amendment comes from its most ardent advocates.
Most Americans support the Second Amendment and agree that it preserves an individual’s right to bear arms. They also support limitations on the right, including universal background checks, red flag laws, and keeping military-grade weapons away from teenagers. A majority opposes the sale of such weapons altogether.
Those limitations wouldn’t violate the Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion establishing the individual right to bear arms, made that clear. “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” he wrote. He added that it’s “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
But Second Amendment absolutists oppose any restrictions and, by doing so, endanger it. Here’s an example: In 2016, then State Representative Randall Friese introduced a bill requiring universal background checks for all gun sales in Arizona. Friese is a trauma surgeon who has treated victims of gun violence, including former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
“We need to make it more difficult for someone who is prohibited from having a weapon from getting a weapon,” Friese told the Phoenix New Times. “You shouldn’t be able to go online and say, ‘Meet me in the parking lot. I’ll sell you a gun.’”
Charles Heller, a Tucsonan who was President of the Arizona Citizen’s Defense League at the time, denounced the proposal. He characterized Friese’s plea for background checks as a “violation of his oath of office.”
Heller is a local iteration of the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, who vehemently condemns any limitation on the right to bear arms. LaPierre’s most famous quote is, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Good guys with guns took down a bad guy with a gun in Dayton, Ohio, in thirty seconds. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right? Unfortunately, thirty seconds was enough time to mow down a city block, killing nine people and injuring dozens of others.
Recently, a bad guy with a gun slaughtered nineteen children and two teachers in a school in Texas. Good guys with guns were present – cowering in the hallway.
Heller and LaPierre take an absolutist view of the Second Amendment. That is how they are killing it.
Every time a state or congressional representative proposes reforms like universal background checks, red flag laws, or limitations on high-capacity magazines, the Hellers and LaPierres denounce the proposals as unconstitutional infringements on the right to bear arms. Sufficient lawmakers in Arizona and Washington agree with them to undermine any attempt to make the use of firearms safer.
Whenever gun safety measures are proposed, they go nowhere. And every time the reason is the same: the Second Amendment forbids it. How many Americans, including American school children, must perish at the altar of the Second Amendment before Americans question whether it’s actually necessary?
The absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment has turned it into a tragically failed social experiment. It doesn’t have to be that way, but those like Heller and LaPierre are forcing the issue. Every time they use the Second Amendment as a shibboleth against even the most modest and popular gun reforms, more Americans come to doubt its value. Eventually, there will be a tipping point and the Second Amendment will be repealed.
When that day comes, Heller and LaPierre won’t have to point fingers to identify who killed their precious Second Amendment. All they’ll need to do is look in the mirror.
© 2022 by Mike Tully
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Three Words that Explain the Supreme Court
The Three Words
The U. S. Supreme Court has gone rogue and analysts have gone ballistic. Every day, politicians, pundits, pollsters and professors share their opinions in print, on the air and online. Everybody has an opinion on the Court, from the lofty prominence of Professor Laurence Tribe to obscure bloggers — which is where I come in. I’ve been a licensed attorney for more than four decades, have taught law courses, and served for a couple of years as a Justice of the Peace. Based on my experience and expertise, I can boil down the Court’s departure from precedent and embrace of divisiveness to three words:
Too. Many. Assholes.
That’s it. What, you were expecting a lofty and lengthy treatise, replete with legal citations and esoteric analysis? You thought I might discuss history and philosophy? I thought of that, but caved in to the obvious. There are too many assholes on the Supreme Court.
People who lie are assholes. People who believe their opinions should override others are assholes. And people who lie their way into positions of power that enable them to inflict their beliefs on a majority of Americans against their wishes are definitely assholes. Their elegant robes are insufficient to conceal their assholery.
Three of them were appointed by the former president. When Huffpost asked Donnesbury’s Garry Trudeau about his first impression of The Donald, this is what he said: “My first raw impression? Biggest. Asshole. Ever. Must draw.”
So, what happens when an asshole gets to appoint three Supreme Court justices? Work. The. Math.
The Abortion Frontier
The Inglewood Clinic is a nondescript white building in a not-very-elegant area not far from LAX. It’s a humble neighborhood clinic now, but that may change. In the early 1970s, before Roe v Wade, the Inglewood Clinic was a destination for people seeking abortion services who resided in states where abortion was illegal, like Arizona. Now that the Supreme Court has reversed Roe and reinstated the power of states to regulate women’s health care against their wishes, the clinic might see a return to busier times. It’s not in the most refined neighborhood, but it’s convenient to the airport. Business will pick up.
The post-Roe world will see the development of an “abortion frontier” along boundaries that separate pro-choice states from anti-choice states. While the Inglewood Clinic and other current providers will see an increase in business, they’re likely to be joined by women’s health clinics sprouting across the Colorado River from Arizona. Residents of the Grand Canyon State won’t have to drive all the way to Los Angeles. They’ll have options in Blythe, near Parker, and across the river from Yuma. Nevada will also see an increase in patients seeking abortion services from Arizona and Utah.
Since Mexico recently loosened abortion restrictions, the abortion frontier will expand there as well. While not all Mexican states allow abortion on demand, money talks – loudly. Even Sonora, a state with some of the most rigid abortion laws, may decide the prohibition isn’t worth the loss of American dollars flowing into border-area abortion clinics and nearby businesses.
Prohibition always leads to a defiant frontier. Consider Baylor University, which forbids the consumption of liquor. The campus is undeniably dry, but not the neighboring area. Baylor is surrounded by bars and liquor stores, and they all do reasonably well. The dry campus is encircled by a defiant frontier profiting from the pent-up demand that prohibition leads to.
The Navajo Reservation is absolutely dry. Sale, possession and transportation of alcoholic beverages is prohibited. In nearby Gallup, New Mexico, liquor stores thrive and much of their clientele consists of reservation residents. Gallup is a defiant frontier near the Navajo Reservation. You can see the evidence stumbling along the highway outside town.
Not every provider in the abortion frontier will be in licensed, legitimate clinics. The frontier will include those outside the law, the so-called “back alley” providers. It’s hard to predict if the Court’s decision will lead to fewer abortions. It’s not hard to predict that more women will die at the hands of unqualified back-alley providers.
A Perfect Symmetry
Many legal observers fault the court for inconsistent positions on states’ rights. The same week the Court empowered states to force women to bear children against their wishes, it removed the power of states to require applicants for concealed weapons permits to provide a reason for the permit. On their face, the decisions are inconsistent.
In the context of modern American society, they actually exist in harmony. The Court simultaneously increased the number of firearms on the street and, assuming the abortion prohibitions result in more births, the number of potential victims. What better way to honor the American tradition of mass shootings than to increase the number of weapons and victims?
Now coming to a street near you: a perfect symmetry, brought to you by too many assholes.
© 2022 by Mike Tully
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