Intro and Origins
I’m a firearms aficionado. I own a long gun— a 12-gauge shotgun, and three different caliber handguns. I use them for target shooting, and I’m fairly proficient with all four weapons. I also have a License to Carry Firearms (LTCFA), allowing me to carry my handguns in my vehicle and/or concealed on my person in Pennsylvania and twenty-nine other states, with full reciprocity.
The Constitution of the United States, that timeless document that became the rule of law for our then-fledgling country, was originally drafted in 1787, to include a preamble and seven articles. These unassuming yet magnificent tenets enabled our Founding Fathers to state their motive and intent, while setting the groundwork that would constitute the premise of our laws.
The Framers of the Constitution, with great forethought, knew that inevitably, “…further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added,” as amendments the Constitution “…in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers,” and to allow the document to be a living document that could grow right along with the country for which it was written.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution are collectively called "Bill of Rights," and are written to spell out the fundamental rights and privileges endowed to every citizen of the United States. They cover everything from freedom of speech to the right to a “speedy and public” trial. There are seventeen more amendments beyond the Bill of Rights, but the one that we are concerned with here is the infamous second amendment, which allows for, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Exactly what is a Militia? More to the point, what was a Militia considered to be by James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, when he penned the Bill of Rights in 1789? The Militia of the eighteenth century was made up of everyday people, and was the larger force between themselves and the “professional” army. Of the roughly 79,500 Americans who were in the Continental Army at its height, fully 56% were Militia. The term “Minuteman” was coined from elite groups of Militia who would literally sleep with their boots on, ready to be called into battle “in a minute,” literally to be the first into the skirmish. Arguably, the Minutemen were the Marines of their times.
Statistics
On an average day in the United States, guns are used to injure (notice the wording— I did not say “guns injured”) almost 300 people (109,500 people annually), and kill more than 80 people (29,200 annually). Six out of ten were wounded by people who have no legal rights to own a gun, and half of those killed were killed were also killed by illegal gun owners.
Let’s take a snapshot of a large metropolitan area, such as Philadelphia. In 2012, there were 2,737 shootings: 2,400 that produced non-fatal injuries, and 337 fatalities. If we use the national percentages (and I would venture a guess that specific metropolitan/urban numbers would be significantly higher), that means that 1,440 out of those 2,400 non-fatal injuries, and 138 out of those 337 fatal injuries, were committed by people who obtained their guns outside of the law.
Philadelphia is considered by the Bureau of ATF to be a “First Class” city, and has somewhat stricter criteria regarding gun laws that the rest of the Commonwealth. Anyone can carry a (legally purchased) firearm out in the open, but needs a LTCF to carry a gun in a concealed manner or in a car. In Philadelphia, however, one needs a LTCF in order to carry either way.
Pennsylvania Law
Here is the law in Pennsylvania with regard to the purchasing, registration, owning, and carrying firearms:
Rifles and Shotguns Hand Guns
permit to buy no no
registration no no
license to own no no
permit to carry no yes
The (legal) transfer of all firearms (handguns, rifles and shotguns) through a licensed dealer are subject to a background check through the Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS). The person making the purchase must sign a transfer/record of sale for the purchase of a handgun, but not for a rifle or shotgun. While it is illegal in Pennsylvania for any government or police agency to keep a registry of firearms (18 Pa.C.S. § 6111.4), the Pennsylvania State Police, in spite of this law, keep a “Sales Database” of all handguns purchased within the Commonwealth.
A person may not purchase a firearm for another person, even as a gift with the expressed intent of giving said firearm to another person. This is considered a “straw purchase.” By letter of the law, a straw purchase is when the buyer of a firearm is unable to pass the required background check, or does not want his or her name associated with the purchase, and has someone else who can pass the required background check purchase the firearm for him or her.
Persons in Pennsylvania who meet the following criteria may not “…possess, use, control, sell, transfer or manufacture or obtain a license to possess, use, control, sell, transfer or manufacture a firearm in this Commonwealth:”
· A person convicted of a felony under the “Controlled Substance (Drugs) Act;”
· A person who is the subject of an active “Protection from Abuse Order” (or anyone who accepts possession of a firearm, other weapon or ammunition from a person he knows is the subject of an active protection from abuse order);
· A person who is a fugitive from justice;
· A person who has been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance;
· A person who has been adjudicated as an incompetent or who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution for inpatient care and treatment;
· A person who, being an alien, is illegally or unlawfully in the United States.
· A person who is prohibited from possessing or acquiring a firearm if the offense which resulted in the prohibition was committed by a person in any of the following relationships:
· the current or former spouse, parent or guardian of the victim;
· a person with whom the victim shares a child in common;
· a person who/has cohabited with the victim as a spouse, parent or guardian;
In addition, any person who has been convicted of any crime relating to prohibited offensive weapons, corrupt organizations, weapons on school property, murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter (based on the reckless use of a firearm), aggravated assault, assault, stalking, weapons of mass destruction or facsimile weapons of mass destruction, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, luring a child into a motor vehicle or structure, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, arson, causing or risking catastrophe, burglary, criminal trespass, robbery, robbery of motor vehicle, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by extortion, receiving stolen property, false reports to law enforcement authorities, impersonating a law enforcement officer, intimidation of witnesses or victims, retaliation against witness , victim or party, escape and weapons or implements for escape, riot, prohibiting of paramilitary training, possession of firearm by minor, and corruption of minors.
Loophole
Gun shows are generally at the center of censure by the gun control lobbies, as these trade shows offer opportunities for dealers and private traders to trade and purchase guns without the background check required in a normal transaction. However, there are some states where this loophole does not exist: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island require background checks for all purchases, while Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania require checks for handgun purchases.
Conclusion
Guns have one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill. While conservatives (such as myself) like to say that if a person had the intent of malice and didn’t have a gun, they would use a knife. Or a baseball bat. Or a car. Or an ax. The enigma of that contention, of course, is that each of those other items serves a purpose beyond that of a weapon: a knife can be used to cut food; a baseball bat to play a game; a car for transportation; an ax to chop wood.
A gun is used to kill. Period. It was invented— first and last— to allow a warrior to take out his enemy without engaging in hand-to-hand combat, obviating the risk of getting himself killed. While I would whole-heartedly delight in a world where it wasn’t necessary to even think about efficient weapons, let alone the use of them, I take the more pragmatic view that we do not live in such a world. And when someone is in trouble, that person has the incontestable right to self-defend.
It becomes a matter of basic survival: no one— excepting someone who is mentally ill— can consciously act to end his or her own life, either directly or by failing to prevent the end, if possible. It is a survival instinct that is hard-wired into every one of us as a member of a species, and all species have instinctual primary directives that incite them to survive and to propagate in a competitive world.
I recognize that guns are abused. Then again, so are knives, baseball bats, cars, and axes. Shall we sanction them all? The very absurdity of banning the use of a knife sounds ridiculous to most of us. Yet last year, almost 350,000 people were stabbed. That’s more than three times the number of people who were shot. Three million people got injured in car accidents— twenty eight times the number of people who were shot. Food for thought.
Until we as a species can learn to use our reason to conquer our baser instinct and become temperate as a whole, we cannot take any means of protection— including firearms— out of the hands of lawful people and effectively enable the criminal’s baser instincts to override anything gained through the society’s efforts of hard-won reason.
Finally, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, in defense of the Second Amendment, were know for quoting the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who published the treatise “On Crimes and Punishments,” in the late eighteenth century: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Only the times have changed. People have not.
Sources
© Ray Cattie
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