Back to Square One, Time to reassess what is needed, What to do, and How to make the country safer…

I don’t know about you, but my disappointment with the Supreme Court ruling on June 23 in NYRPA v Bruen is and will continue to be profound, despite the fact that the outcome was sadly preordained. 

And with the 5th anniversary of the tragic mass casualty event of October 1, 2017 in Las Vegas looming, and the lack of sustainable legislative action since, there is plenty to lament.

What was particularly distressing in June was reading the incredibly weak majority opinion, written by Justice Thomas but parroting to an unacceptable extent the basic gun lobby party line.  I join the rest of the nation in seeing the Court for what it has become, a political arm of the Republican Party and gun lobby, rather than the esteemed and respected institution and third pillar of our government.

So what to do now, and what are credible short, medium, and long-term objectives for a renewed common effort.

First, the broader strategic context.

Here, IMHO, I firmly believe that the theme “A Second Amendment for 21st Century America” remains a compelling framework for a range of actions and strategies.  This theme speaks of sustaining traditional firearm uses and ownership, implicitly recognizes the threat to US society and public safety of military grade weaponry, and acknowledges that the 27-word text from 1791 is from a truly long ago era, whose reality shares so little with that we experience every day in 2022.

So I would encourage readers and all individuals and organizations supporting gun safety measures to look carefully at the presentation materials on this web site and conveyed via twitter and promote the simple idea of a national nonpartisan discussion of a “21st century 2nd’.

Short-term efforts can be particularly keyed to the anniversaries of Las Vegas (October 1) and so many other moments of carnage.

Most simply, we need a steady barrage of lead op-ed articles in all of the major and regional U.S. newspapers and media outlets by key political leaders (including ideally a thoughtful Republican), academics and journalists highlighting the incredible flaws and simple politicization of the Thomas opinion. 

·       Such op-eds need to bolster the Breyer dissent argument (and Stevens in Heller) , which weakly acquiesced in the Heller opinion ignoring the Amendment’s prefatory clause asserting that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”. 

·       These articles, and subsequent follow up pieces need to hammer the obvious flaws of the Thomas opinion and its so-called argument, and tackling the same with the Scalia opinion in Heller.

·       The key objective: to establish publicly and without delay the errors in the SCOTUS ruling in NYRPA v Bruen so that a majority of our fellow Americans will recognize that this particular Court decision was based not on jurisprudence but on simple gun lobby policy and talking points.  It must be seen as challengeable because its bogus argument/justification simply is challengeable.

Secondly, short term, leading personalities need to step forward and promote the notion of “A Second Amendment for 21st Century America” as a building block for a safer America; ideally this nonpartisan idea would gain broad support over time, but it needs people of credibility and vision to step forward.  Perhaps this has to come from such outspoken celebrity or sport personalities, say Matthew McConaughey, Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich standing together on the steps of the Capitol, ideally with the leaders of gun safety organizations, urging the nation to nonpartisan action and underscoring the lack of action by those politicians who cowardly choose not to step forward. I hope they somehow come to read this post. Please retweet this if you agree.

Third, Congress needs to reimpose the ban on sales of assault weapons, recognizing that the existence of some 20 million in AR15 sold since the ban lapsed more than a decade ago is no reason not to act sensibly now.  Who knows, but it is possible that Uvalde and Buffalo would not have happened had Congress done so earlier, and perhaps other moments of similar – or future -- carnage could be prevented as well. Such groups as Brady, Giffords, and Moms Demand Acton should be applauded — and supported — in their herculean efforts to get gun safety advocates elected at all levels of government this November. We all should wish them every success, it truly matters.

And, fourth but not last, our committed and increasingly effective gun safety organizations must continue to tell the story and document the real and painful impact of the tens of thousands of annual deaths by firearms, be they incidents of random violence, mass shootings, suicides or simple in tragic home accidents.  Some links of note:  Everytown’s detail accounting of the massive economic cost of gun violence (https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-economic-cost-of-gun-violence/); Johns Hopkins study on how deadly 2020 was (https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/new-report-highlights-us-2020-gun-related-deaths-highest-number-ever-recorded-by-cdc-gun-homicides-increase-by-more-than-one-third); and the older but predictive AJPH study of 2015 detailing the growing threat to U.S. law enforcement from the prevalence of gun violence (  https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302749) with subsequent years confirming the obvious, that more guns in the public domain means more deaths (61 in 2021, at least 49 thus far in 2022) among police.

Thinking medium term, there is ample scope for leading academic associations, namely the American Historical Association, to launch a series of conferences and colloquia on the 1791 Second Amendment and the First and Second Congresses with particularly attention to the now-ignored prefatory clause on militia and security as well as the Militia Act of 1792, signed into law less than six months following enactment of the Bill or Rights.  Lost in Heller and non-existent in NYRPA v Bruen is the clear line of Congressional discussion and action to give substance to the “well regulated militia” of the Second Amendment and the militia of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, where the elected participants of our political process agreed on text, leaving all the random discussion and comments (including the totally irrelevant Patrick Henry proclamatiom of “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” of 1775) as second tier chaff to the central political decisions.  Perhaps this is best addressed by another wonderful, historically accurate and popular Ken Burns documentary.

Law enforcement leaders are feeling the increasing risks and are trying to respond responsibly under the law.  But they need to reassess their status quo, and become true advocates for public safety in defense of their personnel, their need for community trust, and for the general citizenry they are sworn to protect.  Their  strategy and programs associated with “21st century policing” can only be successful in a country with a “21st century 2nd”.

And, perhaps most basically, gun safety proponents should press the gun lobby and its politician supporters at every juncture on their false Second Amendment narrative.  They should challenge the lobby and politicians at public conferences, town hall meetings, press conferences, and campaign events.  It is telling that the Congresswoman from Colorado could tweet in February 2021 -- largely unchallenged or ignored -- that “Protecting and defending the Constitution doesn’t mean trying to rewrite the parts you don’t like” not realizing that the Second Amendment was itself part of the first effort to amend (or rewrite) the Constitution.  One can expect only so much impact when confronting such ignorance, but the stakes are high and lives are on the line every day, so please do your best whenever the opportunities arise.

To close this lengthy blog post, I have to say a prayer for the 60 innocent people murdered and the hundreds of innocents wounded at Las Vegas five years ago, while thinking that, five years ago as I type, the shooter was amassing his armory and ammunition store in his hotel room, all legal under the law and all found acceptable by the gun lobby and its sycophant politicians.

So please do not lose heart, and please sustain your energy and commitment to firearm safety measures to curb gun violence and to tackle the fundamental direct cause — the perverse manipulation of the Second Amendment by the gun lobby — of the national disgrace and slaughter that we experience daily in this great country of ours.

America should, and can, do better by its people, who deserve to live without fear of mass casualty events at holiday parades, concerts, supermarkets, churches, or places of work.

We can do this together, keep the faith and stay the course.