I admire my friends who are hunters with their simple equipment, especially in bow season. Up in the trees listening and watching in the searing cold before dawn.
It’s not for me. The tradition is so much a part of our rural heritage and the raising of young men. Rifle hunting is a part of our New England culture. Not everyone’s choice, but nonetheless it’s part of all of us. The herds need thinning, the meat feeds families and time outdoors in the wild heals and mends for many.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution recognized that the federal military at the time was woefully incapable of defending the expanding borders. Many of European descent were wary of totalitarian rule when the British Army had all the guns. The amendment was a pushback against tyranny. It offered up: “A 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.”
The amendment confirmed the right to own a firearm of the kind in circulation at that time for hunting and self-defense, and conferred on the states the obligation to maintain a militia, now called the National Guard, under their control, to keep the peace within and at the border as needed. Members of the militia were allowed to possess firearms.
We owned a home once where a historic 19th-century easement granted the right to several to “cross and re-cross with a wagon for the purposes of carrying seaweed.” This was interpreted to mean on foot and without seaweed as well! So be it. But it was not a right to land a fighter-jet there or carry out military maneuvers. A conferred right is based in context.
Likewise, over time, the intent of the Second Amendment has mutated to a condition where we are a country of uncontrolled gun ownership — 300 million personal firearms, with 3 percent of gun owners owning more than half of the guns.
Our predecessors had no such concept in mind. The amassing of weapons for a private army is far outside of any sport or defense capability and amounts to preparing for and providing a threat of insurrection. There is no other purpose. This is not a benign hobby.
Automatic and semi-automatic weapons have no purpose in sport, should not be allowed for hunting in any form, and those that are needed for the militia are provided by the militia. As a Republican acquaintance of mine says, “If you need to shoot those guns, join the military.” A friend of mine who has a number of semi-automatic weapons says he only hunts with a single shotgun, that the others are too dangerous and he’d give them all up if everyone did.
Meanwhile, the carnage perpetrated by these weapons knows no bounds. The gun industry has bought and sold the legislatures without regard to the public safety for which the Second Amendment was intended. We had a nationwide assault gun ban in place in recent years, but it was allowed to lapse. What some believe is their right beyond all regulation has become the tool of choice for massacre.
The National Rifle Association is a tax-exempt “social welfare” organization that last year spent $41 million on “legislative activities,” which is a dizzying concept. It’s patently against the law for a tax-exempt organization to use this form of public subsidy as a lobbying fund for industry.
The NRA is primarily funded by the gun business to promote the gun business. We hear it spoken of as if it were a branch of government, not a publicly funded death merchandiser.
Our country is home to thousands of gun dealers, and some of the less scrupulous are dealing these weapons overseas by the thousands. We are a death exporter. Assault rifles are not for sport or for peacekeeping. They are designed to kill, and nearly anyone can acquire one.
While Washington chants about individual rights, and portends to support the right to life of infants, where is the call to protect the living, to make our schools and streets and neighborhoods safe? Has the fantastically elastic definition of the right to bear arms left us accomplices to murder?
Gangs and organized crime from all over the globe can and do acquire guns in our country. Do we want to be known as the place with all the opportunity in the world that shot itself in the foot every day, for a misdirected interpretation of self-defense? Do the rest of us have no rights to life or safety or a promise of a violence-free community and future?
We have many rights of equal or greater standing than the Second Amendment that are circumscribed and confined because of the rights of others. For example we are guaranteed the right of free speech, yet there are laws against slander, threat, defamation and epithets. We have the right to assemble, but need permits, must maintain order, and so on. No right is so unrestricted as the most lethal, gun possession.
Obstacles are a deterrence to humans. A person with appropriate training, recertification and licensing fees may own a hunting rifle. Make it possible, but not easy.
Some simple proposals:
1. No one under 21 may buy or possess a gun unless active-duty military.
2. The maximum number of rounds in possession should be stipulated. Australia recently reaffirmed the number as five. I do not have a number in mind, but not enough to start a rebellion.
3. Every gun owned or in possession should be individually registered, licensed and carry an annual fee, just like a boat trailer or a puppy. Funding for enforcement comes from fees. Inspection rights at random, just like weighing trucks on the highway. Any listed weapon missing, without bill of sale, background check, and copy of the purchaser’s permits results in significant fine and the owner’s loss of gun ownership rights for a long time. Subsequent possession brings mandatory jail time.
4. Assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons, and conversion kits of all kinds, are banned from possession, purchase or sale.
5. All gun sales carry the same kind of chain of liability that bartenders have when serving the intoxicated.
To protect the rights of the living, the limited rights for home defense, and the limited rights of legitimate hunters, we need a new and comprehensive legal framework.
We need to pay attention to the needs of the whole community, and to the intent of the Second Amendment.
Jonathan Wright, of Northampton, the founder and senior adviser of Wright Builders, is a poet and also writes about sustainability and other community issues.