In print | Published March 5, 2009

Last week an Arizona man was arrested for channeling AK-47s to Mexican drug cartels. To many, the news was another sad chapter in our nation’s inability to arrive at common sense gun legislation.
Now, I would hope the issue of assault weapons is not the end of the discussion on prudent gun policy, but in light of this week’s news, a few words are due.

The right to bear arms is not absolute. (If you don’t believe me, see how well you manage to procure a howitzer.) Reasonable people should be able to agree, then, that free-floating AK-47s have no place in our society for the same reason we don’t allow civilians to maraud around in tanks. It is a shame that the federal ban on assault weapons was allowed to expire, and this Congress should reenact a stricter, permanent version.

But the cultural rift that divides Americans over guns is not fully expressed by the debate over military-grade semi-automatic rifles, just as any talk about hunters’ rights is more or less superfluous. The fact is that most people understand that assault weapons have no permissible application for personal defense and, likewise, that rifles are an integral and necessary component of many lifestyles. But thanks to the gun lobby, gun control activists have been misrepresented as trying to take away basic hunting rights, while even Congressmen who might support an assault weapons ban balk for fear of lowering their NRA approval scores.

The truly serious question that Americans face today is the issue of handguns. As you might guess, opinions on handguns will differ greatly from person to person, but the fact is that in certain areas, namely rural ones, handguns are not even reason to pause. They are but one more tool for self-defense and sport, useful both to protect your home and to leisurely (but responsibly) target beer bottles. In other areas, handguns terrorize citizens, leave passersby dead in crossfire, and breed fear among innocent bystanders.

The simple truth is that handguns mean different things in different places, and no one attitude towards guns should necessarily trump the others on philosophical or practical grounds. Ideally, the right to a handgun would be a matter of states’ rights (or perhaps cities’ rights), determined by citizens to best suit their specific needs. Areas interested in the private possession of handguns could allow such weapons, and areas in which handguns were seen as too risky for society could prohibit them. Obviously, trafficking would be an issue, but if California can keep out unwanted oranges, New York should be able to regulate pistols.

Of course, this picture is unconstitutional (although so was women’s suffrage at one point, so go figure). Handgun ownership has been interpreted as a right safeguarded by the Second Amendment, which is why those interested in keeping their neighborhoods safe would do well to try to work within the system, as many have. Handguns should be universally regulated and effective databases should be compiled to hold dealers responsible to make sure that weapons do not fall into the wrong hands. All of these measures can be enacted without in any way “infringing” upon the right to bear arms.

And as with many issues, the rancorous debate over gun legislation is as much a problem of misperception as a disagreement of substance. The mantra “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is pithy but it — forgive me — misses the mark. Gun control activists don’t seek to ravage constitutional rights. They only respond to grim realities, one of which is the problem of handguns in urban areas.

Many city dwellers are fully aware of the rights afforded them, but have realized that there are times when an individual right must step aside for a legitimate collective security interest. Case in point: Manhattanites give up their right to sparklers on the Fourth of July — fun as they are — because no one wants another Great Fire.

And no, the right to bear sparklers is not constitutionally guaranteed, but individual rights enthusiasts should understand that the right to handguns is as much a culturally determined conclusion as an original intention of the constitution’s framers. An effective six-bullet revolver was decades away when the Constitution was ratified, and this deadly weapon was a far cry from the flintlocks used in gentlemanly dueling. The nineteenth century portrait of the Wild West, Manifest Destiny and agrarian lifestyle also helped to create a present day culture of gun ownership. This culture has changed markedly in the last eighty years, however, through trends of urbanization and suburbanization, and the needs of these communities were not anticipated or provided for by the Founders.

The best solutions, then, are those that recognize the stark differences in attitude towards guns in this country and allow for flexibility.

Will is a first-year. You can reach him at wglovin1@swarthmore.edu.

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