February 26, 2018
There is no serious doubt among scholars that the Second Amendment was drafted to protect the right of individual states to organize militias, rather than the unfettered right of an individual to own a gun. At the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, states were concerned about protecting their right to organize militias to protect themselves against foreign invasion and tyrannical excesses of the new federal government. From the ratification of the Bill of Rights up through the Sixties, there was scant judicial precedent or legal scholarship that addressed this question (Source: “The right to bear arms: what does the second amendment really mean?” by Alan Yuhas, TheGuardian.com, 10/5/17).
The radical shift to the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms can be traced to the takeover of the NRA in 1977 by radical hardliners who espoused this view. Their goal, which they successfully achieved, was to recast the Second Amendment as a sacrosanct individual right, on par with critical individual Constitutional rights, such as the First Amendment right of free expression or free exercise of religion, the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures or the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The newly radical NRA lobbied for the adoption of this view, along with other traditional hard right conservative viewpoints. (Source: “How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment,” by Michael Waldman, Politico.com, 5/9/14).
The foundation of the overwhelming conservatism of the hardline gun rights zealots can be traced to the jurisprudence of the antebellum South that emphasized the right of white men to openly carry firearms in order to subordinate slaves and defend their “honor.” It is worth noting that no such history existed in the pre-Civil War Northern states (Source: “The Slave State Origins of Modern Gun Rights,” by Saul Cornell and Eric M. Ruben, TheAtlantic.com, 5/30/15).
A review of the history demonstrates that the exaltation of an individual right to bear arms has roots in toxic masculinity and racism. This is why it is not surprising that the NRA failed to defend Philando Castile’s rights as a lawful gun owner when he was tragically murdered in Minnesota at the hands of a police officer. It is why it is utterly unsurprising that the vast majority of mass shooters are men, many of whom have a history of domestic violence.
If we really want to radically reduce gun violence in this country, it is clear that we will have to go beyond banning automatic weapons and high capacity magazines; beyond instituting universal background checks and mandatory waiting periods. Of course, all of those things will save lives and must be done, but we must take an intersectional approach that tackles the toxic misogyny and racism at the root of this violence, if we want to stem the tide of innocent blood. We need to attack the hate-mongering fear merchants at Fox and the NRA head on. We need to radically alter what we teach our boys and young men about what it means to be a man, because, as Frederick Douglass told us, “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”