COLUMN: Guns kill people, stupid

From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99 From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99A 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.From Mark Fiore's, "The Right Stuff," Fall '99A 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.· But today, gun-rights advocates have willfully manipulated those words. The Second Amendment, they claim, guarantees an expansive, individual privilege that allows each and every citizen to own guns of all descriptions. And any attempt to infringe on that right, they say, is a violation of the Constitution. That position, taken most prominently by the National Rifle Association, falls short in every respect. It is riddled with myths and flaws, displays a shameful indifference toward horrendous gun-related crimes and relies on political rhetoric to frame the issue in terms of rights rather than responsibilities. What the Second Amendment actually says is that Americans have the right to bear arms in order to maintain a militia. At the time of the nation's founding, such a right was crucial. The Constitution's framers, fearful of outside attacks and internal rebellions, sought to ensure the nation's survival. They did so by allowing states to maintain forces of citizens who served as part-time soldiers with their own firearms. In the first case to interpret the amendment -- the 1875 case of United States v. Cruikshank -- the Supreme Court held that while Americans may indeed have an individual right to bear arms, the Second Amendment is not the source of that right. A far more recent case applies similar reasoning. In the dispute, Quillici v. Village of Morton Grove, an Illinois town was sued after it passed an ordinance banning the possession of handguns except under limited circumstances. Lower courts upheld the ordinance, ruling that the Second Amendment provides no individual right to keep and bear arms. In 1983, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, allowing the ruling to stand. Such decisions put bullet holes through the constitutional arguments of the NRA and other gun-rights advocates. But even if there is a constitutional basis for the right to possess guns -- and a few courts have found that such a right exists -- there is certainly ample precedent for adapting the Constitution to reflect modern realities. After the Civil War, for example, the Fourteenth Amendment disposed of the archaic stipulation that black Americans were only to be counted as three-fifths of a citizen in determining the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And though the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, a theater-goer would be held criminally liable if he shouted "Fire!" in the theater. The premise, of course, is that individual liberty must be circumscribed when the public good is at stake. Certainly, gun-induced massacres have become sufficiently frequent to warrant a similar argument for gun control. In April, 12 students and a teacher were mowed down at Columbine High School. Nine more people were killed in July by an Atlanta day trader. And in the past week, two more shootings -- in Seattle and Honolulu -- claimed nine additional lives. Hundreds more gun-related deaths have gone without headlines. Indeed, according to Handgun Control Inc. -- the nation's largest anti-gun lobby -- 9,390 people were murdered with firearms in the U.S. in 1996. Back in America, with its reluctance to limit gun possession, there are nearly 200 million privately owned firearms -- more than two for every three citizens. The presence of those guns in a home triples the risk of homicide occurring in that home. The NRA's president, Charlton Heston, wants the government to only prosecute criminals -- not restrict gun sales. "This administration, as a policy, is putting gun-toting felons on the streets in record numbers," Heston testified before a House panel last week. "Why does the president ask for more federal gun laws if he's not going to enforce the ones we have?" Heston is off base. What is needed is greater prosecution and greater prevention. Though Heston apparently thinks that those two objectives are mutually exclusive, the only true way to reduce gun crimes it to simultaneously and aggressively pursue both goals. Gun-control proponents are pushing for mandatory child safety locks, tougher background checks, waiting periods and more. That should be only the first step toward ridding America of guns. Indeed, as Attorney General Janet Reno said last week, "We've got to get past the point of rhetoric and concepts and come to the reality -- guns kill."

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