A gun owner’s call for saving lives through gun control

Today's column in the Grand Haven Tribune, reprinted below. 

I am tired. I am tired of the same debates, the same arguments, the same retreating into our respective camps that seems to follow every mass shooting that happens.

No one seems to listen to people like me — and I know I’m not alone.

I was raised in an NRA household and remain a supporter of responsible gun use and ownership, as is almost every NRA member I know. I have several guns of my own, locked in a safe, and used for sport and for hunting. I was raised in a house where my stepfather was a licensed gun dealer and so we had a room with numerous firearms. I was taught responsible gun use from a young age. I remember taking my first hunter’s safety course at the North Ottawa Rod and Gun Club.

At the same time, there seems to be a persistent refusal on the part of a good portion of our country to move forward with clear and sensible solutions to issues surrounding gun violence. All I hear is deflection after deflection after deflection. The biggest deflection from dealing with gun violence is the retreat to the Second Amendment.

“I support the Second Amendment!” I have news for you — so do I. In fact, the vast majority of the people arguing for better gun laws are also Second Amendment supporters.

Here is the key: I don’t think anyone believes in an unlimited right to bear arms. That is, no one thinks everyone should be able to own a nuclear weapon. There is a good amount of military weaponry that is not legal to own as a normal citizen. The question is not whether or not the right to bear arms should be an unlimited right; the question is where the reasonable places to draw those limits are.

There are two questions to be considered when it comes to limitations. The first is this very question of what weapons should be accessible to a citizen of the United States. The 1939 Supreme Court decision United States v. Miller ruled that the right to bear arms included arms that are “part of the ordinary military equipment” or the use of which could “contribute to the common defense.” One of the key stipulations argued by the attorneys for the U.S. was that the Second Amendment protects only the ownership of military-type weapons appropriate for use in an organized militia.

Based upon that argument, it was ruled that a short-barrel shotgun was not permitted under the Second Amendment. At the basis of the court’s decision was the belief that even though short-barreled shotguns, machine guns and silencers may have uses in military service, they are not appropriate for militia service and, thus, may be regulated.

Furthermore, that was 1939, and the technology behind guns has advanced significantly. In some ways, the courts have acknowledged this. As Brian L. Frye notes in a University of Kentucky Law School article, “Most recently, in Parker v. District of Columbia, the D.C. Circuit concluded Miller assumed the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess and use weapons ‘of the kind in common use at the time,’ including handguns.”

So, with this judicial history, we can surely assert that automatic and semi-automatic should, at the very least, be highly regulated. High-capacity magazines which exist only for the purpose of inflicting immense casualties should, at the very least, be highly regulated. These are weapons with a technology not envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, and not even by the Supreme Court when it decided upon Miller (which also upheld the government’s ability to regulate machine guns, by the way).

This brings us to the second question of limitations — limitations on the purchaser. A Feb. 20 poll by Quinnipiac University has found that universal background checks are supported by an astounding 97 percent of Americans. Furthermore, 83 percent of Americans believe in a mandatory waiting period for gun purchases. Every single person who wishes to purchase a firearm should be subject to a background check and a mandatory waiting period — including sales between private parties.

And that background check should include a clear restriction on gun ownership for anyone convicted of domestic violence or under any sort of restraining order related to domestic violence. Women in the United States are 16 times more likely to be shot and killed than are women in other developed nations. If there is a gun involved in a domestic violence situation, the likelihood of the woman being killed increases five times. In an average month, 50 women are shot to death by an intimate partner. Though our current database has blocked more than 300,000 sales to domestic abusers, those abusers are able to avoid the background check by purchasing through a private party or at a gun show. States that require background checks on all handgun sales see 47 percent fewer women shot to death by an intimate partner.

This is not only a question of background checks. Laws must be created — and enforced — that force those who can be shown to pose a danger to relinquish their firearms until the court can be shown otherwise. Some laws like this are in the works, but only 15 states require abusers subject to final domestic violence restraining orders to turn in their guns.

We must do better as a society. I know that we will never stop all mass killings. I know that gun control will not solve the problem of anger, violence and division that infects our society. But sensible gun regulation will decrease the number of mass killings. It will save the lives of women and children. And it will not be an onerous burden upon the average law-abiding citizen.

It’s time for every American — particular members of the National Rifle Association — to stop buying what the NRA and the gun lobby is selling. Let’s wake up and make our society safer. It can be done, and the vast majority of us already agree on the next steps. We must simply refuse to be silenced until those steps are taken.