Who Owns the Constitution?

Linguists, historians, first year law students, and Supreme Court justices all agree that there are many ways to determine the meaning of an old document such as the U.S. Constitution. You could try to give the words their “plain meaning”, using a dictionary to supplement generally understood terms. But people don't agree on what is generally understood, and the definitions in dictionaries change over time just as the usages of words change.

You could consult dictionaries published at the time the document was written. But dictionaries contain alternate meanings for words, and some dictionaries have meanings that are inconsistent with other dictionaries. How would you know which dictionary to choose and which meaning the authors intended?

You could read other things the authors of the Constitution wrote to try to discern what they meant. But the Constitution was written by a number of people who disagreed on many things, especially on what the Constitution should say and mean.

You could look at how others have interpreted the document. But over the hundreds of years the Constitution has been around, judges and other people have interpreted it lots of contradictory ways.

You could give up on interpreting the Constitution altogether and let some expert tell you what it means. This is a very popular approach, especially with judges who claim to base their decisions on a strict construction of the constitution. The problem is, who do we let decide? Often, judges rely upon people with recognized expertise, like university professors who have researched the Constitution and its history. But the experts often don't agree with each other, and they are as susceptible to error and bias as anyone else. You can find an expert who supports pretty much every possible theory of what the Founding Fathers meant.

People who don't agree with a particular interpretation of the Constitution may point out that times have changed and that the Constitution, which was written before modern technology reshaped our lives, must be made relevant to today's world or it will cease to be useful in guiding our government and our people. On the other hand, people who agree with an interpretation of the Constitution may argue that while technology may have changed, fundamental principles do not. The same people who rely on either of these arguments may use the other argument when it suits them. We see this when people who decry judicial activism in protest of a decision they dislike applaud the same kind of activism when it results in a decision that is to their liking.

Ultimately, it is not only impossible to know what the Constitution was originally supposed to mean, it is irrelevant. What we need to keep in mind is what the Constitution was supposed to do. It was written to be the framework for a nation that would be governed differently from the way many other nations at the time were governed. It was meant to establish a relationship between the government apparatus and the people.

It was not meant to be the law. Instead, it provided a mechanism for making, interpreting, implementing, and enforcing laws. It was not meant to be immutable, so it set out a procedure by which it could be amended. And it was not meant to be the property only of scholars, historians, linguists, judges, or experts. It belongs to all of us, so ultimately we, the people, acting as a nation and not just as individuals, say what it means and what we need it to mean.

Overthrowing the Government

The reasons people give for owning guns have changed over time. It has been a long time since most people would say they needed guns to keep their African slaves from rebelling or fleeing, and it has been quite a while since people said they needed to be able to defend themselves from native American savages. At a forum a couple of days ago in a suburb of Chicago, one guy shouted out that he needs his guns to protect himself from people who live on the south side of Chicago. I wonder who he had in mind?

Not many people around where I live, or where most people live in the US live, still say they need to be able to hunt so that they will have food to eat. Not many say they need guns so they can kill themselves, even though that's what a lot of gun owners do with their guns. Most suicides in the US are committed with guns, and most gun deaths are suicides.

It used to be that only those on the really weird fringes said they needed guns so that they could fight against their own government if it ever became tyrannical. Not a lot of rational people think their handguns or even their assault rifles would make them much of a match if they were up against their local police department or sheriff's office, let alone the entire US government. But remarkably, that was the overwhelming view of about 200 people who showed up at the recent suburban public forum.

The Illinois State Rifle Association had asked their people – who love their guns more than they care about other people's lives – to go to the forum. They showed up and, on a pre-arranged signal, interrupted the moderator's introductions by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. There's nothing wrong with pledging allegiance, but this demonstration was designed to take control of the meeting and display their power. You may have seen something like it in movies like Cabaret and The Sound of Music, which chronicle how Nazis would intimidate patrons of beer halls and other public events by singing, saluting, scowling, taking names, and following up with beatings.

The pro-gunners seemed to think that they were displaying patriotism, and every so often during the forum one of them would accuse people who were promoting reasonable solutions to the problem of gun violence as being un-American.

So it was shocking when one man stood up, wearing what appeared to be military patches on his jacket, announced that he had served in our military, and then went on to say that the reason he needed to be allowed to own assault weapons was so that he could take over the government by force if he decided it was tyrannical. What was more surprising was that the entire roomful of gun lovers stood and erupted in cheers for the idea of armed resistance to the very government that they claimed to love so dearly.

When most people think of modern armed insurrectionists they probably think of kooks living in a cult compound somewhere in the hills out west. But there they were, right in the middle of a prosperous Midwestern suburb, in a meeting that was being held in the public assembly room of the local police station.

The contradiction between claiming to support the government and being eager and ready to overthrow it didn't seem to occur to these people. It made sense to them to cheer a returned soldier just for being a soldier, and in the next breath cheer the idea of killing our own soldiers and federal agents if they were carrying out their duties and their oaths to protect and preserve our country.

One might expect, knowing as we do that various agencies of government in the US routinely spy on people in our country who might be considered threats, that people would be reticent to openly show support for such radical viewpoints. But the gun lovers in the room enthusiastically declared their support for the idea of armed revolution.

At the end of the program a handful of pro-gun folks came up to me, apologized for the rude behavior of the crowd, shook my hand, and said they hoped we could find “common ground.” Maybe we could, if those few represented the majority of gun owners. But they were vastly outnumbered at the meeting, and I'm having trouble thinking of where I might find common ground with people who advocate the violent overthrow of our government and takeover of our country.

Inauguration

Yesterday the NRA and Illinois State Rifle Association rallied more than 200 of their supporters to jeer, boo, and heckle the speakers and disrupt a panel discussion that was titled, “Guns and Public Safety: Where We Stand After Sandy Hook.” Today I heard the President of the United States recite lofty praise for the noble character of the American people. It is hard to reconcile yesterday with today.

Perhaps the President believes that by appealing to people's better natures he will move them towards showing respect for one another. Little respect was shown yesterday, not even for a man as he was telling about his son being gunned down at work. The crowd kept shouting as the slain boy's photo was shown on the screen. As another of the speakers talked about feeling compassion for the family members whose loved ones have been shot, the crowd continued to shout insults. I doubt the angry gun owners who were at yesterday's public forum will be moved by the President's speech. I doubt they will listen to it without screaming at their televisions. Actually, I doubt they bothered to listen.

It is hard to tell how small a portion of our populace seethes with the fear, anger, and hatred that we saw in the audience yesterday. They want us to think that they are the majority. I doubt it. We would have already come apart as a country if most of us were that crazed.

The influence that these people have is not to be denied. It should be denounced. The President, in talking as if they weren't among us was probably trying to deliver a speech that would be looked upon by history as noble and visionary. That's what most presidents aim for. Maybe painting a picture of America as it can be is all that they can do. I hope our president doesn't forget that the image he created is not accurate.

The NRA and its supporters do not embrace dissent. They do not tolerate divergent opinions. Their mode of discussion is imbued with the same violence that their weapons promise. Yesterday, they wouldn't even agree that babies shouldn't be slaughtered. These people, who think that their guns are more important than other people's lives, do not seek common ground or reasonable solutions. They see public discourse as something to be disrupted. After yesterday's meeting, the NRA congratulated its members for doing a good job of sabotaging the public forum.

I do not think that our President is unmindful of what is happening in the country. He had to deal with the haters and obstructionists throughout his first term. Had he been at yesterday's forum, he wouldn't have been surprised by what went on. I don't criticize him for pronouncing a vision instead of reporting on reality. I am just disappointed that he was not able to find a way to confront the destructive attitudes that are frustrating his efforts to lead us forward.

It's wonderful that our president can still look upon the world and talk about marching towards a better tomorrow. But it's about time he turned to the rabble and told them to stop throwing rocks. It's time we all did. Then we would see just how puny they are, and their influence would be diminished to be proportionate to their ranks.

Doing As Little As Possible

President Obama today asked Congress to expand the federal requirement that says that before people can purchase guns, they must pass background checks. These background checks would make sure that people are not allowed to buy guns if the law says they cannot own guns because of their prior felony convictions or disqualifying mental conditions. Right now, about forty percent of guns are purchased without the background checks, because checks are only required if the guns are purchased from federally licensed gun dealers. No background checks are required if guns are purchased from unlicensed individuals. This is what is called the “gun show loophole.”

Obama also proposed that the background checks be required for purchases of ammunition, not just guns. He also wants to outlaw assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 bullets.

Yesterday, the New York legislature enacted its own package of gun controls, including a ban on new assault weapons, a requirement that all such weapons that are already in New York be registered within a year, and a requirement that anyone who sells ammunition report to the government purchases of large amounts of ammo.

These measures will do some good. But they aren't nearly enough. Although assault weapons have been used in a number of spectacular mass shootings, by far the greatest number of shootings are not committed with assault weapons. Handguns are the weapons used in most shootings.

What is happening in New York and in Washington D.C. right now is that politicians are responding to the shootings that are most embarrassing to them – the mass shootings at theaters and schools. They are paying very little attention to most of the shootings that kill about 80 people each day all around the country, including the suicides which make up more than half of all shooting deaths.

The politicians are not really trying to solve the problem. They are trying to look like they are solving the problem. If they wanted to solve the problem of gun violence, they would have to look at the causes of gun violence, and mental illness isn't the only cause. Poverty, inferior education, inadequate policing, lack of opportunity, racism, bigotry, isolation, drugs, sexism, historical and cultural attitudes and other factors can all contribute to violence. The politicians don't want to open up those cans of worms.

There have been enough studies that we know what it will take to reduce gun violence. We will have to remedy the causes of violence, and we will have to reduce the availability of guns of all kinds in all places.

All that will be accomplished by the small efforts that politicians are now making to reduce gun violence is that in a few years, the NRA will be able to argue that today's inadequate efforts did not work, and that therefore gun control is a waste of time. Why don't we just do what needs to be done now?

NRA Responds

The National Rifle Association finally reacted to the shootings at Sandy Hook elementary school. It said that we should put armed police officers at every school in the nation, because there is no other way to assure that children will be safe. Their proposal will be appealing to some people. Over the past several decades, politicians' response to crime has almost always been to call for more police officers. What the politicians don't talk about much is that when the funding runs out, we always end up cutting the number of police on the streets. Our country simply can't afford to have police everywhere. Nor do the politicians talk about just how little good it does to have more and more police. Usually, deploying more police in an area just means criminal activity moves down the block.

The NRA thinks that if there is trouble we shouldn't have to wait a minute or two for the police to arrive, and that we would be better off if there was an armed policeman not only on every street corner, but in every school. That is, they think we should live in a police state. Not many people agree, and certainly not a lot of NRA members, who are famously anti-government. Nor would it work to have only one police officer at each school. To really protect kids the way the NRA envisions protection, we would need police both inside and outside the schools, in every hallway, and at every possible point of entry. Like a prison. And when school is dismissed, we would need police to escort every child home.

The NRA can't think that their proposal makes sense. But it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to sound good to people who don't want to think about what the real solution to our gun violence problem is. The solution is to have far fewer guns in civilian hands. That solution works everywhere else in the world, and it would work here. We aren't really very different from people everywhere else in the world. We came from everywhere else in the world.

What the NRA really wants is not a reduction in violence. It wants more guns, regardless of what effect the guns have on our society. It is, after all, the trade association for the gun industry. Just as the oil, gas, nuclear, and coal industry lobbies push for more use of their products regardless of the harm they are doing to everyone's health and the environment, the NRA doesn't see its role as protector of the populace. It just wants its corporate members, who manufacture, import, and sell guns and related paraphernalia and services, to make a profit. There is no reason to take them seriously when they talk about gun safety.

But, like the energy lobby, the gun lobby has a loud voice because it has the money to advertise, contribute to political campaigns, and organize. There is a lot of money in selling guns, so it is well funded. There isn't any money in not selling guns, so the opposition to the NRA has hardly any money at all.

Corporate money has invaded not only our electoral politics, it has virtually taken over the public debate on a number of topics, including the issue of guns. Even though the American people, shocked by the recent shootings, want something to be done to reduce the violence, the NRA has the money to continue to shape the debate. Today's NRA press conference was just their opening gambit. They will persevere and seek the kinds of victories that they have won in the past and that have brought us to the point we are at now. The only thing that might make a difference this time and lead us to do something about the violence is the images we have in our heads of all the children lying dead in their classrooms. It would take an awful lot of money for the NRA to erase those images.

Seven-Year-Olds and Guns

Three days in a row, seven-year-olds have been in the news because of the guns around them. In one story, a seven-year-old boy shot his five-year-old brother while the brother was in the bathtub. Their mother had left two handguns lying around the house. In another story, a seven-year-old boy shot his eight-year-old sister. The gun he used belonged to his grandfather, with whom the children lived. Their grandfather kept the gun locked in a safe, but the seven-year-old managed to unlock the safe. In the most recent story, a seven-year-old boy was shot to death by his father while they were getting into their car. The father said he didn't realize the gun was loaded. All three shootings were called accidents.

Accidents, maybe. Preventable? Absolutely. If there hadn't been guns in the household, none of these kids would have been shot. For decades, hospitals, schools, television stations, and magazines have been advising new parents to baby-proof their homes by putting poisonous chemicals out of children's reach, covering electrical outlets, putting up gates to guard against falls down stairs, and implementing all sorts of other safety practices. I know. I got the warnings when my kids were little. I took them seriously. So did everyone I know. We got used to not being able to open kitchen cabinets without first releasing child-safety latches. There can hardly be a parent of a seven-year-old in this country who hasn't heard these warnings.

And yet, on three days this past week, seven-year-olds were involved in shootings in our country. Are people with guns really so stupid that they don't think they have to protect their children from this known hazard? Do people with guns think their guns are more important than the lives of their children?

It doesn't seem fair to blame all people who have guns for these tragic shootings. But it is fair to blame the millions of members of the National Rifle Association (NRA), because that group has consistently lobbied to keep the government from doing anything to make children safe from these kinds of accidents.

There is a government agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which has done a great deal to reduce childhood injuries and deaths caused by ingesting poisons, strangling on drapery cords, suffocating under crib bumpers, inhaling small toy parts, and numerous other potential hazards. But because of the NRA's efforts, the CPSC is prohibited by law from doing anything to keep kids from being accidentally shot.

There are lots of things the CPSC could do if it was permitted. It could mandate that guns not go off if they are dropped. Other countries have this regulation. The CPSC could mandate that guns have integral locks which would make it harder for kids to shoot them. The CPSC could impose standards for safes where guns are stored, to make it harder for kids to unlock them. But the CPSC has been totally banned from doing anything with regard to guns.

It is hard to imagine that the NRA and its millions of members are so heartless that they are willing to sacrifice children in the name of gun owners' rights. But for years their strategy has been to oppose any regulations on guns, no matter how reasonable the regulations are and no matter how catastrophic the result has been for the public, including children.

One day, this country will decide that protecting children is important enough that it will risk offending the NRA. Sadly, more five, seven, and eight-year-olds will probably be shot before that happens.

Church Shooting

Yesterday, while members of the congregation I attend in Illinois were discussing gun violence, a man walked into a church in Pennsylvania and shot his ex-wife, the church organist, in the head, killing her.

The shooting in Pennsylvania didn't influence my congregation's decision to take a stand against gun violence. It was happening as we talked. No one knew about it. But the possibility of a shooting like the one in Pennsylvania was on people's minds. We have all heard of other shootings in churches, schools, and other places where we would like to think we are safe.

What concerned the people I was among was not just that a shooting might take place in our own congregation, but also that shootings might take place somewhere else. No one even mentioned the possibility that we could protect ourselves by posting guards at the doors. No one talked about any measures we might take to protect ourselves as distinct from protecting everyone else everywhere else. The discussion, which was spirited, never veered from the question of what we should do to make the entire world safer.

How wonderfully different the discussion was from what we have grown accustomed to in our political world, where everything is presented as a choice between us and them. American jobs are extolled over jobs being shipped to China, Mexico, Bangladesh, or India, regardless of which country's people are more needy. American health care resources are being restricted to American citizens and denied to people who live in our country but who have not achieved citizenship, as if non-citizen residents didn't need to be healthy. American security is touted as more important than the security of any other nation. Every city and every state is competing to get companies to hire people within its borders rather than in nearby cities and states. Every locale wants people to shop, dine, and vacation there rather than somewhere else.

I'm not sure why the discussion at my congregation stayed on the level it did, but I am grateful for it. Maybe people are so tired of reading about so many shootings every day that they just want it all to stop. Maybe the teachings of concern for one's fellow humans that are found in my religion and in every other religion I am aware of were actually guiding people's thoughts.

Having just endured an election season where we were constantly told that everyone would be voting their own pocketbooks, it was wonderful to participate in a discussion in which no one argued that self-interest was any different from concern for the general welfare. How delightful to be reminded of the sweetness, when so often we are surrounded by bitters.