By Henry S. Kramer, Tompkins County
Like many American citizens who are not members of SCOPE, I do not own a gun nor do I want to own one. So, why am I writing this to SCOPE? Because guns are unlike any other form of property, they are specifically guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Protecting and preserving the entire Constitution itself, even if we do not agree with some of its clauses, is an important value in its own right.
The Constitution is the glue and the cement that holds us together. Americans can be a violent people; we are certainly a litigious one. Like the rules in football, the Constitution defines for us what the rules of the game are and how we must play it. If opponents of gun rights want to change the Constitution, they should follow the amendment procedures. These procedures are difficult and were designed as such to create a high hurdle for those who may want to alter the Constitution. Gun control people are impeded by the Second Amendment, but that does not stop them from trying to pass laws, statutes, and ordinances that undermine our constitutional protections. Presidents Wilson and Obama viewed our Constitution as a set of mere guidelines but they were wrong and organizations such as SCOPE are necessary to protect the Constitution.
While I can support some gun regulation under our Constitution, I think the Second Amendment must be honored. That is one reason why so much is at stake this November in terms of who will appoint Supreme Court justices. The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. They have tightly enforced the First Amendment free speech rights hut have effectively nullified the Tenth Amendment. which leaves power to the states and the people. On the Second Amendment, they have set boundaries which seem to be flexible. That is both a good and a bad thing. It allows adjustment to the times but it also allows the Court, if so disposed, to give the Second Amendment lip service while effectively reading the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. Because the Supreme Court is the bulwark of constitutional rights, who will be the people who interpret the Constitution is a critical question.
On one occasion, the amendment process for the Constitution has failed us, prohibition. This social experiment that was forced upon the country by a well organized, vocal, group was so unpopular with the American public that it failed, becoming the only constitutional amendment ever repealed. Strict gun control laws, even if passed, would face a similar fate. They would not be widely accepted particularly outside our big cities and statistics show that tough gun control laws simply do not work.
Consider that you, as a citizen or legal resident of the United States are constitutionally protected to carry your property with you when you cross from New York into another state. It remains yours. That is, all your legal property, except your gun property. Although it is the one kind of property the Constitution protects, it is also the kind of property that the state you enter can regulate or even confiscate. This creates a kind of constitutional singularity for gun property.
So, why should people who don't like guns support and value your Second Amendment rights? Because if we do not, who will be left to speak for us when they come for our First Amendment free speech rights, our rights to a free press, our right to freedom of religion? All are constitutional rights matter and if we fail to defend any of them against unconstitutional incursion we start down the road to the loss of other rights. No rights are absolute rights; some restrictions are not only inevitable but sensible. But the core Second Amendment must be preserved if other rights are to be honored. When you talk with people who don't like guns, this is perhaps what you should tell them. Whether or not they agree with you, they may then support your work in defense of our Constitution itself.
