Gun control and the 14th Amendment

It’s never too late to learn, and I have done a bit of that this week. In discussions surrounding the nomination of Merrick Garland as Attorney General, and his flaccid support for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, I learned that the Second Amendment was somewhat tied in with the Fourteenth Amendment. I never knew that.

I have always associated the Fourteenth Amendment with citizenship rights of folks born on United States turf. It was enacted to protect the rights of former slaves, but had the unintended consequence of enabling the practice of “anchor babies.” I wish there were a more gentle way of saying that, but it is what it is. When we think of anchor babies, our minds naturally drift to the south. Folks from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua pop over the border while pregnant and bingo, we have a new United States citizen who is eligible for all rights and privileges. That’s not always the case. It’s also a practice among Asian and Eastern European folks as well. It’s a tourist industry unto itself.

Enough about race and nationality. The subject makes me uncomfortable, as it should all of us.

What I didn’t recall about the Fourteenth Amendment was that it basically includes a restatement of the supremacy clause. The original supremacy clause as written in 1787 said, “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

That’s clear enough, but the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted 80 years later reads, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Well, that too covers the Second Amendment, so we might have a bit of cover.

As I understand it, the goals of the Biden/Harris gun regulations are three-fold. First, they want universal background checks. I have a little bit of wiggle room on that one. Folks with a history of violence should be limited to a hammer or a bar of soap in a tube sock rather than the more efficient tools of destruction, but I remain concerned about who makes that determination. Is it the next-door neighbor? The ex-girlfriend? Or worse yet, the government? I can see a lot of ways that can go wrong.

The second leg of their gun reform program concerns magazine size. I should first congratulate them for addressing something that actually has to do with the function of a gun rather than its appearance. I would then say, “good luck with that.” Let’s remember that a magazine is a low-tech device. It’s a box with a spring in it. They have always been easy to manufacture, and now with 3-D printers available, there’s a black market just waiting to happen. We can also take two of legal capacity, tape them together (inverted), and with a quick turn of the wrist, there’s not much difference in function.

The third wobbly leg on the Biden/Harris gun-control stool is a rehash of the “assault” weapons ban of 1994, which is arguably the most stupid, ill-considered law ever passed through congress. It outlawed the sale of guns based largely on aesthetics like folding stocks, pistol grips, flash suppressors, and bayonet lugs. One did not need a bayonet to be out of compliance, just a place to mount one.

The favorite target of gun critics is, of course, the AR-15 and its many clones. I don’t own one, but it’s estimated that somewhere between five and ten million people in the United States do. The popularity of the AR and its variants is due in part to the fact that it does resemble the M-16, which has machismo appeal. We can’t deny that much, but it’s also a modular system. It’s like Legos (or for folks my age, the Erector Set). They are customizable and efficient. That’s why people like them.

Unfortunately, on the odd, sad, tragic occasion that an over-medicated white kid shoots up an elementary school, it tends to be with an AR or variant. It’s for the same reason that most vehicular homicides happen with Fords or Chevrolets. They’re just popular. They’re out there. It doesn’t make it less horrible, but the press prefers to go for the low-hanging fruit of the equipment rather than tackle the more difficult social motivations behind those atrocities. It seems that we are unable to blame the behavior of the person, so we blame the tool.

What offends me is that the left only cares when there is a mass shooting, and the daily carnage associated with gang activity and the pharmaceutical trade taking place in cities across our country goes widely ignored. Ironically enough, that comes from the people who call everyone who disagrees with them “racist.” Let’s see if the Biden/Harris administration cares to address those issues.