Dear America,
The recent marches in the name of sensible gun control staged by high school students in several cities remind me of my own youth when the issue was Vietnam. In many ways that was a harrowing time, and all young men, even those who weren't against the war but weren't for it either, were apprehensive about the draft, and those of us who were pacifists and were thus against the war were ardent about ending it. But the combination of motivations gave us something that we carry with us in the way of an understanding of the duty of every American to speak his or her mind to anyone who will listen. It's now been two generations since we children of the sixties learned our lesson, and there has not been another galvanizing issue to teach that lesson to our young until now. Unfortunately, largely because of lack of experience the protesters are ill-equipped, or at least not fully equipped, to prevail on their issue, albeit through no fault of their own. Much like many of the blind advocates of limitless second amendment rights, they are not informed about the issues and thus must resort to the only thing they know--how they feel--for justification of their positions. I raise this issue because just as in the case of the Vietnam war, there is an argument to be made whether one subscribes to it or not. But in any case, the argument must be raised; it is insufficient to merely express disapproval of the opposition.
Vietnam was a long time ago, and for some time the issue of the war defined us as a people. As it turns out, until now no similarly galvanic issue has come along to make us look at ourselves as a nation, but it has arrived and just as was the case fifty years ago, the argument must be made in cogent fashion so that everyone will at least think about where he or she stands, and then take a peaceful, but ardent position. That ardor filled the streets during spring break this year, but while the passion was overt, a cogent inspiring argument went unarticulated, though it does exist. What has been lacking in the gun control debate is an acknowledgment of two central points. The first is what the second amendment actually says, and that starts with its first four words: "A well regulated militia..." The phrase well regulated is of the essence, but neither the NRA nor gun advocates ever seem to mention it. What it means is obvious, yet it never comes into the discussion when self-serving bumper stickers get written: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people," and "You'll have to pry my rifle from my cold, dead hands," for example. It would be easy to tell such people as fly those flags that plenty of guns have been pried from cold dead hands, and it was guns that made them so, not just the people who fired them. But we could go tit for tat on that score all day long and it would change not a single mind. The fact is that our founding fathers had ample regulation in mind when they wrote the second amendment, and they said so in its language. But there is a greater point that needs to be made.
While avid gun owners make the argument that the right to keep and bear arms is sacrosanct and cannot be rightfully diminished...that it is central to our democratic rights...they fail to recognize that more fundamental than the right to own a gun is the right to freely speak. Yet, even though the right of free speech has primacy among our rights, at least in my mind, even that right is limited. Commercial speech--the ads you see on television, for example--are regulated. And as to slander and liable, while the right of free speech and the bill of rights generally were reinforced by the fourteenth amendment, our Supreme Court has reiterated that even the bill of rights is not absolute, and thus states can afford redress to victims of defamation by slander and liable. We have the right to worship as we please, but a church that indulges in politics can be denied its tax exemption within the constitution, currently in the form of what is called the "Johnson amendment." Thus, while we all have the right to keep and bear arms, our government may regulate our doing so as it does many things that are fundamental in the name of the safety and welfare of our people.
I hope that some Florida lawyer seeks to educate the young people of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Raised voices and impassioned speeches won't suffice. The arguments must be made. There is the constitution, as referenced heretofore, but there is also the more fundamental issue of the right of each of us to be free from the predation of the demented few, and so far, no one has made a successful pitch for that right. One is needed, and it exists, now most appropriately. Happy Passover. Happy Easter.
Your friend,
Mike
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