"IN GUNS WE TRUST"

The interpretation of the Second Amendment relating to gun control is far removed from the intended meaning of America's Founding Fathers. It states;

"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."  (December 15, 1791)

Nick Bryant in his book 'The Forever War' writes, 'No passage of mangled syntax and dodgy grammar has become so ferociously contested in contemporary America as the second amendment, the 27 words decided upon by the Senate as the Bill of Rights went through its clunky ratification process.' (p. 221)

Note the words, 'well regulated militia. The concept is communal, a collective, a group.

In the modern era the gun lobby have tried to rewrite the words and enshrine a right to personal gun ownership. Yet individual gun rights are not part of America's constitutional DNA. Rather, the thinking behind the second amendment was to offer states the surety that they could keep their militias and thus preserve their autonomy. First and foremost, it was a safeguard against a federal standing army, which in post revolution America was seen as an instrument of monarchical power and thus a tyrannical throwback to the days of British rule.

Armed militias, a term used to describe the informal armies of the 13 colonies made up of citizen soldiers, would become the watchmen of America's newly won freedoms and guard against an overbearing federal government.

The behaviour of the gun lobby is reminiscent of the 'revisions' in George Orwell's 'Animal Farm. Since the official recording of mass shootings (4 or more deaths) in the US since 2013, the highest number of deaths, 682 occurred in 2022. So far this year 83 mass shootings have resulted in 75 deaths and 350 injured.

What else has driven this fanatical pursuit?

Nick Bryant summarises, 'The pursuit of profits relied on the proliferation of deadly weapons and the propagation of gun related myths.' (p. 227)