Second Amendment to The Constitution of the United States: 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.

On June 28, 2010 the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment gives Americans the absolute right to bear arms, and that state and local governments cannot curtail that right in the interest of public safety. In writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that  ”It is clear (emphasis mine) that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.”

Well, it is not clear to me and I have several questions: What part of “well regulated” do those five conservative justices not understand? How did they reach a conclusion that by  “Militia” the drafters of the second amendment actually meant anybody had a right to own guns for any reason?  And how does ensuring “the security of a free state” get expanded to personal protection and/or sport?

I am neither a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar, but it seems rational to me that the second amendment to the Constitution sets a clear limit on the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms”: That they be well regulated and in service to a militia for the sole purpose of protecting the state’s (not their personal) security. I can only assume that Supreme Court rulings in favor of expanded gun rights had more to do with political ideology than the Constitution.

What bizarre logic led to policies that permitted unbalanced people to obtain weapons for the sole purpose of inflicting death, injury and chaos on innocent Americans at Virginia Tech, Columbine, the Washington D.C. beltway, and Tucson?

How do we rationalize the three gun-related tragedies in or near Southern California schools just one week after the Tucson massacre? On January 11 a gun in the back pack of a student at Gardena High School went off accidently and hit a 15-year old boy in the neck and a 15-year old girl in the head; on January 12 a school police officer was shot hear El Camino High School, and a Bell High School student was shot a half block from the school.

How do we justify sitting idly by as gun advocates block any attempt to regulate guns and gun ownership when 10,000 Americans are slaughtered in gun murders each year? How can it be that there is a Constitutional right for anybody (responsible or otherwise) to bring guns into public spaces like parks, restaurants and theaters, thus threatening my peace of mind and safety?

Some argue that there are enough laws on the books, but I disagree. For instance, people on the terrorist watch list can buy guns and explosives. Between 2004 and 2010 there were 1,225 background checks run on people on that list who sought to buy firearms. Of these, 91% were approved. There is something awfully wrong here.

If it were up to me I would do as they do in Great Britain where a 1997 law required all private handgun owners to turn in their weapons to police. The law also mandates that anyone who seeks to purchase any gun must first get a certificate from the local police chief specifying that the applicant “had good reason for requiring such a certificate”… and that they did not pose “a danger to the public safety or to the peace.”

Canada requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and Australia banned assault weapons in 1996.

Alas, such a sensible approaches do not seem to be politically possible in the United States. It is even difficult for us to have a civil discussion in the public arena about outlawing assault rifles and magazine clips with more than 10 bullets… guns and magazines that have the single purpose of killing as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

We can’t have this conversation because our policy makers live in fear of the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a law professor at the Washington and Lee University, said it well when he wrote as part of a forum at Politico.com:

“If we were to approach this strictly from a rational or public health perspective, semi-automatic handguns would not be legal. They serve no practical purpose other than killing human beings. Nevertheless, there is no possibility of the United States enacting rational gun control legislation. The NRA is the most powerful lobby in the country and they own the Congress (and the Supreme Court). Where I live in Virginia it is impossible for a politician to be elected for any office from any party without worshiping at its altar.

“I am reluctant to speak about this publically because I know I will have to endure a week of hate e-mail… Reasonable gun control legislation is a useless cause in the United States. It doesn’t matter how many people will have to die because we cannot address this problem.”

The NRA does not limit its advocacy to lobbying public officials… it even fights to shut down any thoughtful public conversation. Michael Luo of The New York Times wrote on January 25 that “In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, the familiar questions inevitably surfaced: Are communities where more people carry guns safer or less safe? Does the availability of high-capacity magazines increase deaths? Do more rigourous background checks make a difference? The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done.”

Funding for this kind of research, according to Luo’s sources in the scientific community, has been “chocked off” through the influence of the NRA.  He quotes Mark Rosebnberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention as saying “We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions.”

There is one inescapable conclusion here: The NRA is afraid of the facts… afraid of an informed public engaged in a rational debate about a difficult issue. Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis said that “The National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress have largely succeeded in choking off the development of evidence” upon which a prudent policy could be based.

Where do they get that power? Follow the money: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, gun-rights groups contributed $2.1 million to 21 candidates (79% were Republicans) in the 2010 election, while gun-control advocates contributed $5,300 to seven Democrats.

Forty-nine lobbyists from eight gun-rights organizations (with a total lobbying budget of $3.9 million) prowl the halls of Congress, while four groups with nine lobbyists represent gun-control interests, and their budget is $150,000.  Over the last 10 years, the gun lobby has contributed $24 million to candidates (85% to Republicans), while the other side spent less than 10% of that.

Whether you are one of the owners of the more than 200 million guns the FBI estimates are in private hands— that is 85 guns for every 100 Americans— or, like me, you do not have guns in your household, you should be interested in developing public policy based on sound information and thoughtful debate.

I know that my preferred option of banning handguns and assault weapons will not become the law of the land.  But there has to be a middle ground between that and the unrestricted right to own any weapon and carry it any place. Local elected officials should be able to enact basic laws and ordinances for carrying out their most sacred responsibility: ensuring the safety of their citizens.

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, has purposed a sensible path to that middle ground by introducing a package of three gun safety bills. Under his proposals there would be a ban on high-capacity gun magazines, and weapons would be kept out of the hands of criminals and terrorists.

“It is time to start considering the safety of our families over special interests” Lautenberg said in a press release. “In our country terrorists can buy weapons at gun stores, convicted felons can buy Glocks at gun shows, and just about anyone can get their hands on a 30-round magazine designed to shoot and kill quickly.

“Congress has a responsibility to enact common sense reforms that will keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, and prevent another massacre like the one we saw in Tucson.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and 1200 other members of the US Conference of Mayors announced their support for similar action, and Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to ban high-capacity magazines.

These proposals would not infringe on the rights of hunters and sport shooters. They would not infringe on the rights of those who feel they need a handgun for personal protection. But enacting them would keep the most egregious killing tools out of the hands of those who seek to harm innocent people. They do not go far enough to please me, but are a good place to start a respectful conversation.

The NRA, of course, is opposed to Lautenberg’s and McCarthy’s proposals, and are doing their best to stifle any debate before it gets started. They know that a common sense conversation is dangerous to their rigid and nonsensical doctrine.

But it is time for the majority of citizens to stand up and insist that elected leaders act in the best interest of our families and children. The right wing’s rallying cry in the 2010 election was “Take back our America”.  Let’s claim it as our own and take back our country from those who want to cloud over the Constitution in gun smoke and a hail of bullets.