The level of gun violence which plagues the U.S. at present is clearly the product of a corrupt, rightwing Supreme Court which abandoned 250 years of precedents with a preposterous interpretation that gave credence to the arguments of the gun lobby.
Two transgressions underlie the Second Amendment interpretation of the Court. The first is the failure to recognize the conflict between the right to bear arms and the fundamental "unalienable Rights" spelled out in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
The second is the Court's failure to give due consideration to the likelihood of harm resulting from the prohibition of any regulation of gun ownership. The correlation between rates of gun ownership and gun violence is unequivocal, as shown by a simple comparison of gun ownership and gun violence rates among countries with economies similar to that of the U.S.
Country Gun ownership rate (per 100 people) Gun homicide rate (per 100,000 people)
United States 120.5 6.7
Canada 34.7 0.2
United Kingdom 5.0 0.2
Germany 20.0 0.1
The problem the country faces now is that there no clear way out of the dilemma which the Court has created. The rate of gun ownership and the momentum which the Court has given to the radical right is such that changes in laws or the composition of the Court will not undo the harm. Those might be good first steps, but they will not negate the existence of a heavily armed minority willing to use violence to intimidate the majority of citizens who support gun controls.
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