This week in my local
paper, one letter writer suggested
that had Iraqis had the right to unfettered gun possession Saddam would never
have been able to take power. "Did they have sporting rifles for upland game or
shotguns for quail or geese?" he asks. "The answer is a resounding no!"
Turns out, however, that the letter writer (like so many others before him)
is wrong. According to the New
York Times and the Washington
Post, most Iraqi families own at least one gun. Indeed, in the ramp up
towards war, ammunition sales were up 50% at local gun shops.
But even so, individual gun possession is not sufficient to topple an
autocratic regime equipped with tanks, fighter jets, and chemical and biological
weapons. If the Second Amendment were intended to preserve the individual's
right to bear arms (a position with which the Supreme Court disagrees),
it is now clearly out of date. If John Ashcroft (with the power of the FBI and
the American military behind him) knocks on your door and wants to come in, he's
coming in. Your hunting rifle won't stop him.
Which is why the First Amendment, not the Second, has far more relevance
in the 21st century. The United Kingdom, Germany, France, and most other
democracies regulate guns more heavily than the United States, yet their liberal
free expression policies have kept them from devolving into dictatorships. Those
that are truly concerned with American freedom would do well to match their
donation to the NRA with one to the ACLU.
Update: Save the subjunctive! When the Anacortes
American published my letter they changed the verb in the third paragraph's
second sentence from were to was. But because the sentence
introduces doubt, the proper verb tense is the subjunctive, not the indicative.
The American Heritage Usage Panel agrees …