Democrats have long been thought to be "weak" on gun rights, to the extent that Mr. Kerry felt obliged to portray himself during the election that he was a hunter and outdoorsman, which as near as I can tell he only is on rare occasions. Mindful of the line from an Aaron Sorkin
The West Wing script, "It's not that you don't like guns. It's that you don't like the people who like guns," I have to admit that my respect for a close reading of the Second Amendment and my desire for a safer society are in some conflict with each other. To resolve that conflict, I've been thinking about an approach that might help Democrats stake out a pro-gun and pro-safety position, which might arguably be both consistent with our values and helpful in realizing a safer society. If we insist on the constitutionality of
Roe v. Wade, we're obliged to respect the constitutionality of the Second Amendment.
First of all, I want to attempt to establish at least a little personal credibility on both sides of this issue. I participated in an obscure olympic sport, Modern Pentathlon, which involves among other things a stage where you fire a 4.5 mm pistol at targets as one of the five events. I wasn't raised around firearms or anything, and don't know that much about them, but have dated a couple of guys who were into guns and have been to the range a few times with somewhat more firepower than my little air pistol. On the other side, although my surgical practice is outside the body cavity, I did volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières in Kosovo and treated some pretty horrific gunshot wounds there. So I hope I've seen the bad and good of guns, and will try to be as balanced as I can.
The public health implications of firearms are undisputed. According to the CDC 2003 Preliminary Death Report, the number of firearms deaths breaks down into three main categories. Accidental discharges took 752 lives, about the same as influenza. Homicides accounted for 11,599 deaths, equivalent to the number that died from alcoholic liver disease. Most alarming, 16,859 people took their own lives with guns in 2003, which is about the same as the number who died from Parkinson's disease. For what it's worth, HIV disease took under 14,000 lives, cardiovascular disease took nearly 700,000, and all firearms deaths together totaled (including the handful of undetermined intent deaths) nearly 30,000, which if separately categorized would make guns the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. As a matter of public record it is very clear that guns don't kill people, but that bullets lodged in vital organs do.
The case law and associated scholarship on the Second Amendment is remarkably consistent. In a lengthy essay, Glenn Reynolds (yes, Instapundit, no, I'm not a regular reader) summarizes the legal reasoning around the second amendment. Read the link if you're interested but in broad terms I see the law this way: The right to keep and bear arms is individual, not collective. The national guard and similar organizations is not what the framers meant by "militia" in this context, but rather the body of citizens capable of bearing arms and willing to provide their own. The purpose of the right to bear arms has two parts: to allow people to defend themselves and their families, and to make available a body of armed citizens from among whom militia could be raised, whether that militia's role was to protect the nation, or to protect the people from a tyrannical government.
Under this reasoning, the sorts of weapons that are usable to defend the home or are equivalent to more or less ordinary military equipment are protected by the Second Amendment. Individuals possess the right to keep and bear such arms, and the right is not unlimited but is subject to regulation, as in "Well-Regulated Militia." According to Reynolds, the academic literature is utterly dominated by this reasoning.
On the other hand, there are almost 30,000 dead per year in America because of guns.
I suggest the following approach. Call it the "Well-Regulated Militia act of 2007" if you like. In order to own a firearm or to purchase any form of ammunition, each citizen must pass an examination indicating his or her knowledge of the law on the use of weapons for personal self-defense, and demonstrate knowledge of safety procedures for the storage and handling of weapons. I'd personally advocate extreme limitations on ownership and storage of weapons and ammunition without one other part of the examination: marksmanship. Fundamentally, I don't think you have any business with a gun in your hand without the ability to hit what you're aiming at. Finally, I'd add severe penalties for noncompliance, so that we'd have a legal means to disarm the pinheads out there.
The benefits of this from the liberal point of view are clear - safer handling and use of firearms, fewer needless deaths, and an improvement in public safety. From the NRA's point of view, an organization that was founded to "promote and encourage ... shooting on a scientific basis," the marksmanship requirement should be a no brainer and most of the people I've known who own guns are responsible and safe about them. Pay for the administration of this requirement with a federal excise tax on ammunition.