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We have come to the point that when 18 people are massacred in Lewiston, Maine—or 49 in Orlando or 60 in Las Vegas—we accept it as a way of life.

Well, you know, we have the Second Amendment, people say, as if words written over 230 years ago condemn us, without recourse, to gun violence.

America has a gun violence problem it is powerless to solve, and the problem exists because of a disconnect between gun zealots, who control the political scene, and what the majority of Americans want. Before getting to the disconnect, let’s look at the numbers.

This year, the Johns Hopkins School of Health published data from the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, American had 48,177 gun deaths—26,993 suicides; 19,592 homicides; and 1532 deaths attributed to unintentional shootings, legal intervention, and undetermined circumstances.

This is the equivalent of a fully loaded Boeing 787-8 falling out of the sky every other day.

Guns are the leading cause of death for kids 19 and under for the fifth straight year. According to “80 hours of gun violence,” published by Columbus Dispatch, Grant Hospital in Columbus receives between 400 and 500 gunshot victims every year.

How do Americans feel about gun control?

With so much carnage, even the dimmest of wits would ask, “Why not change gun laws?” Most Americans think the same.

A Fox News poll in April 2023 found that 87 percent of respondents favor background checks for all gun purchases, and 81 percent want to raise the minimum age to purchase to 21. Sixty-one percent favor banning semi-automatic weapons. Gallup, Pew Research and AP News polls show similar results.

Why the disconnect between gun zealots and what most Americans want? A powerful gun lobby that controls most Republican politicians? Gerrymandered legislative districts that nearly guarantee the election of Republicans? Yes and yes.

But there’s a third reason: the gun zealots are aided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which renders decisions with no concern for the ramifications of those decisions.

The high court has power to address guns. Why won’t it?

Since 2008, the court has issued three opinions—District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. City of Chicago and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen—that severely limit a city or state’s ability to control guns. The court showed no concern for public policy—keeping Americans safe—and the deaths that occur when legislative bodies are emasculated.

And why? The justices live in a world that consists only of legal argument, one where their lives are safe. Violence is miles away.

The justices could change things in a heartbeat and give state and local governments permission to aggressively attack gun violence. There’s nothing requiring the justices to view the Second Amendment as so absolute.

In 1991, retired U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

In his view, “The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires. … The Framers clearly intended to secure the right to bear arms essentially for military purposes.”

But then came the Heller, McDonald and New York decisions, where the court has taken a Pharisee-like slavish attitude—read Mark’s Gospel 2:27—to the Second Amendment. It’s as if the court believes Americans are born to serve the Second Amendment, instead of the Second Amendment being created to serve the interests of Americans.

Let’s change our focus. Forget about state legislatures. Invite the justices to spend a few days with trauma surgeons. Let the justices walk at night in the inner city and spend time with families who have lost a son or spouse to homicide.

Of course, the justices will politely decline and say they have to be far removed from the subject at hand. Their grand pronouncements must be based on legal analysis alone.

Which is precisely the problem.

But if the justices did take a step into the real world, maybe then they would say to themselves, “Was the Second Amendment designed to protect violence and prohibit governments from doing anything about it? Maybe we got it wrong.”

[This post was orginally published on Novebmer 19, 2023, in The Columbus Dispatch.]

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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com

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