Stepping in it...with Guns.
That Pesky Second Amendment
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.
— 2nd Amendment, Bill of Rights, Constitution of the United States of America
This one simple phrase has turned into a battle cry for some and a bane for others. The intent of the second amendment is obscured by its vague language. Some see the purpose of the right to keep and bear Arms as directly related to the establishment of a well-regulated militia, and that the United States military was part of the right to bear arms. But others believe that the right is absolute and that the context doesn’t matter. These people believe that the right to keep and bear Arms is established for everyone, regardless of the contextualizing phrase. This latter belief was furthered by the NRA and turned into a cause championed by the Republican Party.
We weren’t always so divided on the issue. There are a couple of things that changed this. First, the NRA went from being a huntsman’s club to becoming radicalized during the twentieth century. Second, the Republican Party became the unofficial home of the NRA, a strategic move meant to bolster their base but which ultimately infected the party as a whole. While the rest of America stayed the course, it was the NRA who took the Republican Party to the extreme position of pro-guns and anti even the common-sense gun control that most of America want.
A Brief History of the NRA
Founded in 1871, the NRA was at first a marksman club designed to ensure that individuals were always available for military service who knew how to shoot. That morphed into a more general shooters club that did things like hold shooting contests and help establish shooting ranges. People don’t often know that the NRA was actually fully on board with gun ownership restrictions and worked hard to make sure that reasonable gun ownership restrictions were established and put in place. The NRA also assisted to make restrictions on private ownership and weapon sales, helping to bring into existence the Gun Control Act of 1938.
In a story of entryism that will look very familiar to those watching the current Republican Party evolution, it was around 1971 when ATF killed an NRA gun member who was hoarding weapons that the radicalization of the NRA began. Some in the party were outraged at this, and even though the “old guard” of the NRA tried to keep the party from spinning out of control, those louder and more extreme elements shouted them down. Harlon Carter of Texas ended up with control of the organization, someone called an “immigration hawk” who used to be part of the border patrol. He began the whole “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” line that until that time, not even the NRA believed.
It was this move that entrenched the anti-gun-control-no-matter-the-cost mantra. You can read more about this history on NPR.
A Brief History of Gun Control in Texas
Now, you might think that of course, Texas was part of the reason. They love their guns, don’t they? Well, it wasn’t always like that in Texas either. In fact, shortly after the civil war, gun control was enacted in direct response to groups such as the KKK and other white supremacist organizations. The reason? These groups were better organized and had more weapons than the Texas Rangers, and so had the capability to terrorize communities into silent complicity — something they very often did. Around 1870, Texas actually went farther than most other states by prohibiting the ownership of almost all weapons.
No. Gun worship only came recently to us. And it’s made it impossible to study gun violence in any meaningful way, keeping this a divisive issue. As with any sacred cows, we’ve also dug in as a society in some really weird ways — ways counter to the interest of us all. We ought to be able to at least talk about guns and how to regulate them without it degrading into a second amendment battle-to-the-death.
Let’s do better.
