Salt Lake City News | New West Network

second amendment

GoUtah!’s Statement on Supreme Court Hearings

By Christian Probasco, 3-24-08

This came in just as I was posting the last story.  I asked N.W. Clayton, communications director of Utah’s gun rights group Gun Owners of Utah (GoUtah!) to comment on the recent Supreme Court hearings concerning the Heller Case in Washington, D.C.  GoUtah! bills itself as “Utah’s Uncompromising, Independent Gun Rights Network.” It’s motto is, “No Compromise! No Retreat! No Surrender! Not Now! Not Ever!” Obviously a group which takes the “shall not be infringed” end of the Second Amendment seriously.  Seeing as I believe the Second Amendment guarantees me the right--excuse me, spells out my obligation--to purchase and keep antitank weapons (as if I had that kind of money), I find myself in agreement with GoUtah! As far as their statement goes, I got much more than I bargained for.  Here it is in its entirety:

In chapter 11 of Abbey’s Road [1979, Penguin Books, New York], Edward Abbey writes: “The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military. The hired servants of our rulers. Only the government - and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.”

Mr. Abbey, were he alive today, would doubtless be pleased as punch to learn that, based on the recent oral arguments in the case of D.C. v. Heller, a majority of U.S. Supreme Court Justices actually seem to think that “the people” means the same thing in the Second Amendment as it means in the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment and elsewhere in the Constitution, rather than denoting “policemen and members of the National Guard while on duty,” as some folks seem to believe.  The Court appears likely to issue a written opinion confirming that you, as a private citizen, are one of “the people”, and that you therefore have a constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.  So perhaps those of us who share Mr. Abbey’s views on gun ownership won’t end up becoming outlaws after all. 

But the definition of “the people” in the Second Amendment is only one of several issues that the justices will address in Heller.  The Court will have to take some first steps to flesh out the definition and extent of the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms.  In particular, the justices will have to decide whether the following portions of D.C.’s gun law infringe on that right: (a) the city’s virtually complete ban on private handgun ownership, and (b) the requirement that all privately-owned rifles and shotguns within the city limits be kept inoperable (unloaded and either disassembled or locked) at all times, even in people’s own homes.  Do these laws infringe on D.C. residents’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms?  Or are they merely “reasonable regulations” analogous to the laws that prohibit you from falsely shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater?  We at GOUtah! hold to the former view, but we acknowledge with astonishment that the Bush Administration’s Solicitor General officially takes the latter view.  We expect that much debate will ensue and that many Second-Amendment court cases will follow.  In any event, we’re happy that this long-neglected article of the Bill of Rights is finally getting a more-than-cursory hearing.  Now that the Second Amendment has been retrieved from the Supreme Court’s dead-letter bin, we anticipate that the Court will, in the coming years, develop a framework for interpreting the right of private citizens to own and carry weapons, much as it has done with regard to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and other rights for which extensive high-court jurisprudence exists. 

Some Americans don’t feel comfortable with the notion that ordinary law-abiding citizens might actually have a constitutionally-protected right to own guns.  Just as some Americans don’t like the fact that the First Amendment protects the right of Larry Flynt to publish his magazines.  And just as many policemen probably don’t like the Fourth Amendment’s tough restrictions on search and seizure.  Our advice to such people:  Either learn to live with it, or work via the constitutional amending process to repeal or modify the Second Amendment (or any other portion of the Bill of Rights that offends you).

GOUtah! notes with pride that the Beehive State, while still having too many gun restrictions, is, compared with most states, at the cutting edge of protecting people’s right to own and carry firearms.  For example, Utah is to our knowledge the only state with a law that explicitly requires all state-owned schools, colleges, and universities to allow concealed-weapon permit-holders to carry firearms on campus.  The administration of the University of Utah refused to obey this statute and maintained a campus-wide gun prohibition until the State Supreme Court forced them to rescind the ban in 2006 (on non-Second-Amendment grounds).  The academic elite at “The U”, who have long preached tolerance toward people of every conceivable sexual orientation, race, religion, and national origin, are now very reluctantly learning to tolerate those individuals who choose to legally exercise their right to an effective means of self-defense.  Given the number of permit holders in Utah, we may reasonably conjecture that many hundreds of faculty members, staff members, adult students, and visitors at educational institutions throughout the state routinely and peaceably carry firearms for self-defense.  Had such been the case at Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois University or any number of other “gun-free zones” where shooting sprees have taken place in recent years, many lives might have been saved.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.

Like to receive our print magazine, The New West? Click here for free subscription information.

By Christian Probasco, 3-24-08 | comments (3) | email story | print story

[+ My Yahoo] | [+ My Google] | [+ del.icio.us] | [+ DiggIt!]