(Apologies in advance if this is well-trodden ground by now. I've been busy for much of this past year and haven't spent much time on Big Orange.)
In the aftermath of the Tuscon massacre, we are faced with a conundrum:
How do we reconcile the right to bear arms with the freedom to not be murdered in cold blood by a schizophrenic stranger in a parking lot for no reason?
I ask this question with earnestness and sincerity; I am agnostic on the usefulness of gun control legislation as we have known it. I am more or less convinced that past approaches are political non-starters, and new thinking is required.
So what legitimate steps can be taken to reduce random massacres enabled by access to enormous firepower, without constraining freedoms guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment?
Within the current legal framework, what else can be done without infringing on the rights accorded to law-abiding citizens?
I remember having conversations with conservative family members immediately after Obama's election, telling them that the gun control battle was effectively over and they had nothing to fear. There are a lot of single-issue voters on this, and I worry that renewed efforts at federal gun control--justified as they might be--will not only fail in the new Congress, but be costly politically.
I have said, with regard to terrorism (more of the bomb/hijacking variety), that part of the price we pay for having an open society is that people will occasionally abuse it. Endlessly expanding and empowering the police state cannot possibly be expected to stop terrorism altogether. And it surely cannot be done while simultaneously preserving the benefits of that open society that heavy-handed security is designed to protect in the first place.
So, I would like to ask the RKBA community--got any new ideas for at least reducing the frequency of massacres?
I have no answers, only questions.
One possibility that has occurred to me is that, given the radical advances in technology since the creation of the Bill of Rights (which the Founders, despite their celebrated gift for foresight, could not possibly have been expected to anticipate), would the bloodshed in Tucson provide enough impetus on both sides for a national convention on updating/revising the 2nd Amendment? What might such a conversation look like?
I suspect part of the reason there is so much confusion and talking in circles on this subject is the wording of the Amendment itself. What does "well-regulated" mean? Is this Amendment really about individual rights, or is it about militias? Just what counts as an "arm," anyway, over two centuries later? &c.
Again, I am not proposing to Come Take Your Guns Away. But I feel those Americans (left & right) who argue for an expansive interpretation of the 2nd have at least some ethical obligation to propose something that can make these travesties less frequent.
ETA: crossed out "schizophrenic" in b/q and replaced with "stranger," to avoid being misleading.