(continued)
It was only after the Civil War that gun ownership became more common. Mass manufacture of guns was in place by then, and producers, such as Colt, began advertising weapons as necessary for the defense of home. Technological changes such as rifling made weapons more accurate -- and thus more desirable - - and Civil War veterans from both armies were allowed to take home the rifles they had used in combat.
Gun advocates attack Bellesiles' book as fiction.
For them, the mythic connection of gun rights to the nation's founding ideals "adds a depth of conviction and rhetorical punch," observes Stanford historian Jack Rakove. (Commentary by Rakove on the Founding Fathers is on the cover of this section.) It makes the Second Amendment "more sacred."
Such a freeze-dried view of constitutional history undercuts legitimate arguments that guns provide necessary protection for some citizens. For example, African Americans living in the South during the civil rights era had a good case for arming themselves to protect their families and homes from night-riders, who often went abroad with active or tacit support from local law enforcement.
Such pragmatic considerations aren't really part of the "sacred" view of the Second Amendment, which is what underlies the Bush administration's gun control policies. Bush proposes to assign more resources and personnel to prosecuting gun laws already in place. It has been a stock argument by Second Amendment advocates that no new laws need to be enacted, only that current laws be enforced.
The Bush plan was announced this spring amid a welter of now-familiar statistics. Teenagers are more likely to die from gunshots than from all natural causes combined. A U.S. Justice Department survey reported that 60 percent of students from 6th to 12th grades say they could get a gun if they wanted one.
President Bush, quoting statistics that show guns are used to commit thousands of murders in this country each year, said his new policy would make it clear that if you use a gun illegally, you will do hard time.
But his plan does nothing to change fundamental realities of guns in America: that ownership is widespread, that firearms are too easily acquired by potentially dangerous people and that accidental gunshots kill thousands of citizens each year. Nor will the plan do anything -- to the delight of gun rights advocates -- to delay or restrict the ease with which guns can be acquired.
On this Fourth of July, the president ought to review his early American history. If he does, he'll find that the Declaration of Independence asserted a right to life, not an omnipresent threat of death provided by a culture of guns. It asserted a right to liberty, not a tyranny of danger wrought by the ease with which dangerous weapons can be acquired. And it asserted a right to pursue happiness that certainly means something more than whatever joy comes from a smoking gun.
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