[Salon] Some Thoughts on The School Shooting in Georgia



From: Allan Brownfeld
Some Thoughts on The School Shooting in Georgia

The latest tragic school shooting in Georgia should focus attention on the need to completely alter our gun laws.  We hear much discussion of the Second Amendment, but most of it is completely ahistorical.

  When I was in law school, no one suggested that the Second Amendment meant that anyone could purchase a military-style assault weapon. My father was a businessman in New York City.  He had a permit for a handgun.  To obtain this permit, he had to go before a judge to explain his need for a gun.  He explained that in his business he often went to auction sales and carried $10,000 or more in cash with him.  He was granted the license.  Now, our allegedly “conservative” Supreme Court has ruled this New York law unconstitutional.  In their view, almost any regulation of guns violates the Constitution.

I don’t know what Constitution they are reading.  They claim to be “Originalists,” seeking the original meaning of the authors of the Constitution.

The very first words of the Second Amendment are, “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.”

At that time, we had no standing army.  There was concern that England might try to regain control.  Now, a huge defense establishment has assumed the role of the militia of 200 years ago.

Former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative Republican, has said that since the reason the amendment was adopted—-to raise a militia—- is no longer necessary, the amendment is obsolete.  In Justice Burger’s view, the sale, purchase and use of guns should be carefully regulated just as automobiles and boats are regulated.  Such regulations, he pointed out, would not violate any part of the Constitution.

There is nothing “conservative” or “originalist” about substituting the wishes of the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers for the literal words and meaning of the Second Amendment.

In no other country in the Western world are schools dangerous places, with teachers and students fearing for their lives.  The grandson of a good friend of mine was killed in the Sandy Hook, Connecticut school shooting in 2012.  Since then, there have been school murders on a regular basis.  Do our Supreme Court justices really think that the framers of the Constitution mean the Second Amendment to promote the mass murder of children?  
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