In these blog posts, I have often suggested that people read the blog posted by history professor, Heather Cox Richardson, called “Letters from an American.” I have included the link at the bottom of this post. She is always inciteful and thorough in her analysis and commentary but today’s is particularly relevant to what we see going on around us these days. It is truly frightening and well worth the read. As I have pointed out many, many times in my posts, American democracy is under serious threat and Professor Richardson’s post today really demonstrates how serious this threat is.
So, back to guns in this country. I was thinking about this whole conundrum and a couple of things struck me. First of all, I was reading an article which described the responses of some Republican members of Congress to the current effort to enact some type of reasonable gun control legislation. When Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was asked about the possibility of simply increasing the age to buy assault type rifles from 18-years old to 21-years old, he immediately responded that such a measure was “unconstitutional.” That seems to be the standard response from Republicans these days to any type of gun control legislation – “it’s unconstitutional.”
That struck me as odd because there is nothing in the Second Amendment about an age limit. It simply reads, “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.” It doesn’t say anything about age. There are those that would argue that since you can legally vote when you are 18 years old, that should also be the age at which the Second Amendment kicks in and every 18-year-old should have the ‘right to bear arms.’
Why then was the Congress able to pass the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 that makes the drinking age 21-years of age across the country? No doubt there are many 18-year-olds who would like this to be changed, but the fact is, the law was passed for the specific purpose of saving lives.2
Along the same vein, in 2019 Congress passed and the President (Trump) signed an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to raise the age from 18 to 21 in order to legally buy tobacco products. It is now illegal for any retailer to sell any tobacco product – including cigarettes, cigars and e-cigarettes – to anyone under 21.3
The Congress and the President saw fit to sign legislation involving alcohol and tobacco with the sole purpose of saving lives and yet the current cabal of Republican congressmen and congresswomen are totally unwilling to do anything to address the epidemic of gun violence in this country. It is illegal for anyone under 21 to buy booze. It is illegal for anyone under 21 to buy tobacco products. And yet, upon turning 18, someone can walk into their local sporting goods store and walk out with a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. How does that make any sense whatsoever?
At a minimum, the country could at least be consistent and increase the age required to buy assault rifles to 21 for the same reason the laws were passed for alcohol and tobacco. Don’t get me wrong, I believe there should be a total ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. However, given that seems like a bridge too far these days, raising the age to buy assault weapons to 21 would seem to be a reasonable first step. It has nothing to do with constitutionality, it has to do with common sense.
The whole argument constantly offered by the NRA and their Republican bitches is that restricting access to guns will make law abiding citizens less safe, since only criminals will have guns, so they promote more people having more guns which demonstrably makes citizens less safe. This is the very definition of Catch-22!
Unfortunately, it’s a given that nothing will change and now that President Biden has called for a ban on assault weapons, there will actually be a buying frenzy for such weapons. That is what has happened in the past. Mass shooting. Outrage. Prayers and condolences. Calls for gun control of some kind. Spike in the purchase of guns and ammunition. Rinse and repeat!! And because of this ridiculous hamster wheel, we Americans will be less safe tomorrow than we are today.
Welcome to the United States of Insanity!! Milo Minderbinder would be so proud!*
*Milo Minderbinder, fictional character, a black marketer in the satiric World War II novel Catch-22 by American writer Joseph Heller. Minderbinder, who equates profit with patriotism, exploits his connections as a U.S. Army lieutenant and mess officer to amass personal power and wealth
- Letters from an American.
- https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/minimum-legal-drinking-age.htm#:~:text=Minimum%20Legal%20Drinking%20Age%20(MLDA)%20laws%20specify%20the%20legal%20age,varied%20from%20state%20to%20state.
- https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/ctp-newsroom/newly-signed-legislation-raises-federal-minimum-age-sale-tobacco-products-21
Nice to know Jim Jordan is an anarchist.