More than a few Supreme Court justices apply originalism to their constitutional rulings, as did former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (RIP) once told a university audience (in January of 2013) the Constitution is “dead, dead, dead,” rather than a “living document.” It is judges like Scalia who are trying to kill it. Originalism forces the ruling justices to apply the laws, conditions and morals in existence at the time the relevant constitutional provision was enacted. Thus, a case challenging the legality of a semiautomatic assault weapon designed to kill or maim as many human beings as possible in the shortest time span is interpreted as if it were an armament from 1789, when the Second Amendment was passed. If a musket or flintlock were legal then, so then must be any firearm carried by an individual. Huh? A musket/flintlock has to be loaded for each shot, hardly instantaneous. There’s enough for the target to run away and avoid being killed. How about knives? Not a lot of mass killings with knives.
The current spate of “let everyone have a gun” rulings from the United States Supreme Court stem from originalist rulings, began in 2008 (hundreds of years after the second amendment passed) with Scalia’s opinion in Heller vs DC. If originalism ever becomes an invalid way to evaluate constitutionality of an instrument that was intended to be the guardrail for the country until there is a constitutional amendment to the contrary – in short the Supreme Court actually recognizes the our Constitution is “alive, alive, alive” as our founders intended – perhaps firearms will no longer be the leading cause of death for American children and teens. There are, however, several conservative justices who embrace the inane notion of originalism to this day.
To make matters worse, in 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, shielding the gun industry from liability in most cases. It the codification of that exceptionally inaccurate NRA mantra: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Of course, if you take away those guns, especially semiautomatic assault weapons, you eliminate the well-over-600 mass shootings in the US – where ten or more people are killed or wounded – that have occurred every year since 2020. And that’s just mass shootings. Just think how many people would have died if BIG TOBACCO had benefited from a law protecting them. Or industrial polluters releasing seriously toxic waste into the environment.
Even without a constitutional amendment, it would be so easy vastly to reduce gun deaths in the country by allowing individuals, state and local governments harmed by guns to sue the gunmakers for the death and destruction. That would be a wake-up call to gunmakers. Good luck finding insurance to cover the way they sell guns now. There clearly would be more than a few major well-deserved bankruptcies. Gun deaths would plummet. President Biden would love to see such a statute passed, simply repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Think of the death and destruction gun homicides have caused. Like the “Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and the other six were adult staff members.” OR “On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413.” Wikipedia
It comes down to making companies and individuals responsible for the very foreseeable consequences of their behavior. Gunmakers who sell to civilians do not deserve a free pass. Profits to weapons-manufacturers and dead children vs a life without fear of being killed with one of the over 330 million civilian guns “out there” (including 30 million semiautomatic assault weapons). And gun rights advocates, you know that anyone who wants a gun, even an assault rifle, can get one. Underage, mentally ill, a convicted felon, someone with uncontrolled rage, etc., etc.
There is a ray of light, as “responsibility” for providing easy access to guns is wedging its way into the legal system, albeit not against gunmakers… yet. Here’s recent example: “James Crumbley, the father of the teenager who killed four students at a Michigan high school in 2021, was found guilty Thursday [3/14] of involuntary manslaughter. The trial comes a month after the shooter's mother was convicted of the same charges. Legal experts say the groundbreaking verdict could set an important precedent for the extent to which parents of school shooters can be held responsible for their child's actions. In arguments during the weeklong trial, prosecutors said Crumbley was "grossly negligent." He bought a gun for his then-15-year-old son four days before the attack, failed to properly secure it, ignored his son's spiraling mental health and did not take ‘reasonable care’ to prevent foreseeable danger, prosecutors said. The charges handed down to both parents each carry a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison, which would run concurrently.” CNN.com, March 15th. Or we can keep watching our children die.
I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly when did common sense become a choice of last resort?
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