Regulation of Militia
Part one of four of Lego Legacy Legislation: What Is It, and How Can it Solve Our Problems? Gun Control Edition
In 2019, I wrote a piece for BLUNTMoms entitled, Insuring a Gun Solution. I proposed that, if each gun had to be insured to be operated, it would cut down on gun violence dramatically, while still protecting the second amendment. This year, some of the suggestions I proposed were used in San Jose, California legislation to do just that; and now, the entire states of both California and New York are considering similar laws. This is an example of what I call Lego Legacy Legislation.
If we wait to act until we have the ideal solution that solves all aspects of every problem, we can become paralyzed by inaction. If, however, we break big issues into small Lego pieces and snap two together at a time, we end up building a solution.
I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by life. Some days I can’t get out of bed, let alone accomplish what I intend to do for the day. The more I focus on the complete list of demands, the more daunting I find each task; but if I just complete two items and snap them together one by one, at the end of my day I have something that resembles a finished product. Anyone who has ever built a Lego masterpiece knows that it can be complicated and take time to see the shape we intend but that snapping each Lego together is relatively simple (as long as we don’t step on them barefoot). If we each could take this approach to gun control, just snap two Legos together at a time, imagine what we might be able to accomplish.
Big Problems Often Require Many Small Solutions
On May 24, 2022, a teenager walked into an elementary school in Uvalde Texas, and killed 19 children and two adults. On the day the shooter turned 18, there was a provocative ad on social media about the very gun he would go on to purchase and use. One Lego action might be to change laws around gun ads, a second around closing gun show loops, a third around background checks, and a fourth requiring guns to be insured. Each solution may only fix the problem by 25%, but four solutions each at a 25% efficacy can equal a 100% resolution.
We know gun laws work, because when they are repealed, gun violence rises. In the documentary, 91%: A Film About Guns in America, we revisit when Missouri had a permit to purchase, a PTP law, which required a permit to purchase all handgun transfers and background checks for all permits. When the PTP law was repealed in 2007, firearm homicide rose 25%—with no significant increase in surrounding areas. Around that same time, Connecticut passed a PTP law; and firearm homicide dropped around 40%. This may be a case where correlation is actually … causation.
A piece entitled “Reducing Gun Violence in America” reported that, during the Brady Act from 1994-2009, 1,925,000 gun sales were decided through background checks. 90% of denials were from prior criminal activity. Nearly 80% of guns used in violent crimes are purchased through a private seller with no background check or paper trail. In 1934, the National Firearms Act was created, mandating the taxation of manufactures, importers, and dealers in certain firearms and machine guns. In 1968, the Gun Control Act prohibited interstate firearms transfers, except among licensed manufacturers, dealers, and importers. How will we know when we have enough gun safety laws? When we stop having mass shootings, like other countries in the world who have figured this out.
The New Gun Laws
On June 27, 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It was the first significant, federal gun safety legislation in decades: imperfect, like most things in life, but it still contained three significant Lego legacy legislations more than we had before. The law provides:
o Background checks for those under the age of 21
o Closes the “boyfriend loop” for five years after a misdemeanor or felony, and
o Provides funds for mental health services, funds to implement red flag laws, and funds for community-based violence prevention initiatives.
Unfortunately, on the very day this gun safety bill became law, so too the Supreme Court struck down a law that placed restrictions of carrying a concealed handgun in New York, a law that had been in place for more than 100 years. This accompanied the devastating blow SCOTUS delivered just three days prior on June 24, 2022, when they overturned Roe V Wade, which had protected women for nearly 50 years by keeping abortion safe and legal.
According to a Quinnipiac university poll, 91% of Americans support universal background checks. The majority of both Democrats and Republicans believe in legal abortion with restrictions. If majority doesn’t rule, how can we call ourselves a democracy? When guns are more protected than the rights of women, what does that say about our empirical values of women and children?
How Do You Save the Children When it’s Children Who Are Killing Other Children?
When kids are taught drills in school to prepare for and fear mass shooters, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase“gun-shy.”
The New York Post reported that the Uvalde gunman, who I refuse to memorialize by putting his name in print, was able to legally purchase two assault rifles: one on his 18th birthday, and another on the following day, with no problem whatsoever as he had no criminal record or history of mental illness; and if he had, it would have been juvenile and expunged from his record once he turned 18. In other words, a background check might not have prevented this particular incident. The intent is that the new gun laws will; but proof of insurance, almost certainly would have.
If we required insurance approval prior to the purchase of firearms, this might have been avoided. In order to get life insurance, we often have to undergo a medical examination. I’ve even known insurance companies to peruse the social media accounts of the people they plan to insure and use psychological profiling to estimate the risk of insuring certain individuals. If gun insurance companies had the same requirements, what might they have found out about this young man? If an insurance company had to be responsible for every life taken by the bullet of a gun, I imagine it would be harder to get a gun, while still providing responsible people the legal right to own guns.
We allow people to join the military at the age of 18, where they have access to guns, but not without a thorough background check. If we can’t get the law to regulate background checks for the purchase of any gun, maybe we can get them to enforce gun insurance, knowing that those who are liable will, in fact, regulate.
The United States Constitution defines the 1791 second amendment as: “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.” To those willing to stand in the pools of children’s blood to protect the second amendment, I ask, “Where is the regulation in your Militia?”
This concludes Part One: Regulation of Militia
In Part Two of Lego Legacy Legislation: What Is It, and How Can it Solve Our Problems? Gun Control Edition, the question asked and answered is What Will It Take to End Mass Shootings?
©Sage Justice 2022 SageWords.org This article includes excerpts from the book, Sage Words, Legacy, Book Seven. This article will appear on the FREE Sage Words Podcast available on Apple and Spotify. Your subscription to Sage Words Newsletter, purchase of Sage Words, Freedom, Book One, now available on Amazon, Rating and reviews of the Sage Words Podcast, and becoming a FREE subscriber to the YouTube channel Sage Words: Almost Everything You Need to Know, are greatly appreciated and directly help sustain the author and her family while spreading values of empathy through the wisdom of history’s sages.