Some folk over at Harvard think so. Allow me to disagree.
Via Bureaucrash I picked up an article in the Harvard Crimson arguing that the Second Amendment to the U.S. constitution is an “anachronism” (curiously the only five-dollar word contained therein). The article is the worst of the bleeding-heart worst:
Supporters of a constitutionally enshrined individual right to bear arms argue that state gun control laws have “reinterpreted” the right to gun ownership. These limitations on gun ownership, they say, demonstrate that gun ownership itself is not linked to increased violence. But in the wake of the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapon Ban in 2004, gun control remains relatively lax in many states, especially when it comes to handguns, which are responsible for many, if not most, gun-related murders. Gun advocates claim the need for handguns in self-defense, but such considerations are moot when weighed against the number of lives that might be saved by making the weapons illegal.
Apparently this is the sort of screed that passes for “journalism” at that venerable institution. For shame.
I have nothing substantial to add that I haven’t previously mentioned on more than one occasion, I have a few quick hits, and beg forgiveness if I do happen to reiterate a point or two which I deem to be especially worth reiterating. I charge the anonymous author with the following — The Author
- Ignores the number of lives that have been saved because some people have had the ability to defend themselves.
- Has not even hinted at the validity of its assertions, especially the glaringly hypothetical “number of lives that might be saved…” and neglects to mention that all-important caveat, the assumption that all or most firearms will be instantly and irrevocably removed from the hands of violent and dangerous people, many of whom are already breaking local, state, or federal firearm laws and who are unlikely to miraculously start abiding laws if only we pass another one.
- Fails to address the reality that empirical evidence on the efficacy of gun control is a mixed-bag at best. When empirical results are inconsistent, try to understand why the results are inconsistent with otherwise sound theory — do not suggest that a sound theory is incompatible with reality. It is not.
- Does not even pretend to refute the proposition that prohibition (of anything) has not in any instance been historically successful, indeed it is in direct opposition to the laws of economics.
The second Amendment may by some stretch be “outdated,” only insofar as it’s been completely emasculated by the Federal Government, which has taken to emasculating every other check against its nearly infinite power, under which circumstance it needs to be replaced with a more robust and irrefutable assertion of individual rights. The State can rarely protect you from other individuals, and it cannot conceivably protect you from itself.
However apocalyptically unlikely, it is this for this reason — and this reason alone — that the Second Amendment was enshrined in Constitution of the United States.
