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I have lived in pro-NRA and anti-NRA cultures, and discussions of the firearm control and the Second Amendment have interested me across time. People have come up with elaborate arguments to support their position, and the Supreme Court has positioned even more sophisticated opinions on the topic of the Second Amendment. I try to follow reason and common sense in my decision making, and many of the firearm arguments seem to neglect the original statement of the Second Amendment.
The amendment reads as follows:
“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.”
Many people focus on the third and fourth phrases while neglecting the first and second. John R. Bolton presented us with an example of this form of convenient neglect.
“Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.”
This is an example of logical fallacy and neglect of premises. Neither the First nor Fourth Amendments include the limitations of a well regulated militia. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure a free State not a free person; this a collective, not an individual purpose. The segmenting limitation on action is the well regulated Militia phrase. Note that Militia is capitalized further highlighting the formal nature of this collective and limited right. The mechanism for securing freedom of the State via Militia is the uninfringed right to keep and bear arms. It does not follow that people necessarily can or should keep firearms in their homes. Firearms could be kept in a secure centralized building, as an example, for the purpose of accessing the firearms to bear for specified actions that protect the State. As a collective and regulated right with a clear purpose, the idea that the Second Amendment was established to ensure people’s right to individually own firearms for the purpose of hunting, protection from burglars, etc. are unsound, based strictly on the language of the Second Amendment. Human cognitive processes, however, can with limited effort alter a statement to better suit one’s interests and needs. The cognitive warping of statements based on biased perceptions does not change the true meaning of a statement, however; it only succeeds in generating a perceptual false truth of the perceiver(s). False truths rely on social agreements that extend beyond reality of statements. Social agreements can alter reality under the guise of interpretive freedom. Interpretive freedom is widely accepted in post-modern culture, and it has benefits as well as costs. The ability to argue beyond stated rules of an authority, which cannot or should not be questioned, is beneficial. However, interpretive freedom can extend beyond sound reason and justification into individual of collective delusions with relative ease. For example, arguing over the utility of the Second Amendment is different than arguing over its accuracy. The accurate interpretation is quite clear, as describe previously. However, arguments over utility and accuracy are currently blurred. It may be functional or dysfunctional in contemporary culture to follow the language of the Second Amendment. The way to address this issue of utility is not to promote inaccurate interpretations through ridiculous social agreements set to support false truths. The Second Amendment should be amended itself to reflect a current reality or should be followed as written. If followed as written, then substantial limitations should be implemented with regard to firearms in the United States. If the current status quo is to be reified, then another Amendment must be passed. Unsound interpretations lead to unsound actions in large part due to the fact that there is no reasonable anchor to limit arguments or statements. When no limitations are placed on the interpretation of language, then language loses meaning. When language loses meaning by itself and simply acts as a starting point for idiosyncratic interpretations that are only as strong as social support for these interpretations, Amendments are no longer universal laws but tyranny of the most powerful social group. This should frighten anyone interested in freedom because Amendments, in this case, only protect the most powerful groups in society. People cannot, as a result, argue over the soundness of an Amendment but must argue over the soundness or right of socially powerful groups pushing a fluid and flexible agenda that suits the needs of a group, typically a powerful minority, over society as a whole, a dangerous position. The rule of Law becomes the rule of the powerful, which runs contrary to the intent of the Bill of Rights.