When two-thirds of the murders in the U.S. are committed with guns, one would hope that politicians would be taking prudent steps to restrict access to firearms. Against all common sense, Attorney General John Ashcroft is working to make guns more easily available. Last Monday, the Justice Department reversed its longstanding position on the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” reinterpreting it as an individual right to own guns rather than a collective right to bear arms in a militia. Ashcroft’s policy reversal confirms many concerns about his appointment and verifies the National Rifle Association’s boast during the 2000 election that it would be working out of the Bush White House.
Ashcroft’s new interpretation flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s last decision on the Second Amendment. In the 1939 case United States vs. Miller, the court established that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms only with some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia. In fulfilling his oath of office, Ashcroft must respect that the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court is “the supreme law of the land.” He should encourage the Justice Department to follow the justices’ directive and not push his own personal interpretation on the department or on the American people.
Regardless of the Supreme Court’s current position, it is frightening that Ashcroft, in the position of the nation’s top crime fighter, wants to liberalize federal firearm policy. A good attorney general would work to take the country in exactly the opposite direction. America needs tougher laws to keep weapons away from criminals and children, ban handguns and create a national gun registry to keep track of weapons and their owners.
The obstacle to taking these steps goes beyond Ashcroft’s hard-line policy. The vague wording of the Second Amendment leaves open the possibility that a future Supreme Court will reinterpret the Constitution the way Ashcroft does. The amendment has the potential to obstruct future federal gun control legislation that could prevent thousands of needless deaths. Therefore, the American people and the individual states should vocally push for the repeal of the Second Amendment.
Repealing a constitutional amendment is not an action to be taken lightly; [Really? That's exactly what you are doing. -azurefly] America is obviously a nation that prides itself on the rights and freedoms of individuals. But the time has come for the U.S. to weigh the right to bear arms against the right to be free from gun violence in schools, workplaces and city streets.
