The most recent mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida has reignited the national debate on gun ownership. The tragedy at Stoneman Douglas High School adds to the long list of the country’s peculiar epidemic and, with it, a divided United States returns to an almost cyclical partisan wedge issue of between the balance of gun rights and gun control. Despite the emotionally-driven campaign to incite a response from Washington, D.C., the federal government appears to be noncompliant with the statistically popular sentiment . Interestingly enough the national conversation is dominated by a conflicting understanding of liberty, specifically in one’s right to life and agency to protect it. In order to make practical and substantive progress and this increasingly pertinent issue, it is necessary to examine our foundational principles of life and liberty and reconcile it with the trend of modernity.
Acknowledging the tension between America’s constitutional rights and the trend of modernity, specifically with the country’s fluid cultural norms, is not a new approach to public policy or politics as a whole. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the most notable Founding Father to express reservations about the Constitution’s amendability, writing to James Madison about instituting a 19-year recurrent expiration date. His letter to Madison echoes the sentiment surrounding the activism being carried out by the Stoneman Douglas survivors, especially in penning the words “ The earth belongs always to the living generation.” To the extent that Jefferson’s ideas give reason to the divide between the millennial/post-millennials and the preceding generations, the issue of gun rights and mass shootings is a persistent issue within American society today.
A major aspect of - and even the primary reason for - society is security. It is no question that the Founding Fathers derived many of our core principles from John Locke, imbuing concepts of “Life, Liberty, and Property” into our founding documents. Defending oneself from harm is ultimately a universal aspect of human nature. Ideally, the Second Amendment enshrines this right to self-preservation, as any individual reserves the right to defend oneself when his life, liberty, or property are threatened. The abuse of the Second Amendment, however, has spurred the topical conversation of limiting, controlling, and regulating the indirect influences on the Second Amendment, namely weapon modifications, models, and mental disorders . This has, in large part, been the despotic response of mass shootings. Yet, this tendency unfortunately neglects the “despotic” nature of limiting these rights, for it presupposes that the state would be delegated these responsibilities.
Delegating the right of security and protection to the state carries culturally divisive sentiment, and it gives reason to Washington’s acute inaction. There is an undeniable divide between more culturally diverse, coastal regions and the demographically homogeneous,
landlocked regions of the United States. The antagonistic sociopolitical relationship between these two regions has recently intensified, as the recent surge of populist sentiment has exposed the stark contrasts between the “forgotten” man and the “coastal elite.” Those who live in removed regions of the country tend to revere their enumerated rights of individual protection. Idaho and Montana are prime examples of this, as their population disbursement is in tandem with their lax gun laws . Neither of these states require universal background checks, prohibit possession to those deemed “high risk,” or have outlawed high capacity magazines and assault-style weapons. Rural areas of the United States preserve the Framers intent to reserve preservation of oneself and property to the individual as opposed to the state.
Alternatively, there is demonstrative assent to gun control measures within coastal regions like the Atlantic Northeast and the West Coast. Connecticut and California, for instance, have the strictest gun laws in the United States. Each state’s respective populations densities , as well as the history with mass shootings, have prompted their governments to take action to restrict the Second Amendment, thereby increasing the agency of state and local law enforcement to protect its citizens. Though “liberty” has been understood by the Framers to be of individual right, it has been redefined under the changing cultural forces on the coasts. Liberty has become understood by coastal and urban/suburban regions of the country to mean the freedom of harm in public. More prevalent and frequent social interactions such as attending schools, concerts, and sporting events, in these populated areas have an increased risk of maximizing tragedy, which has prompted the people to limit their individual rights of self-protection for the individual and collective well-being in public.
This division, though more subtle than partisan rhetoric, poses as an incredibly difficult hazard for those pursuing gun control policy change. There is a cultural grounding to this dual understanding of “liberty,” which has led to an increased use rhetoric, laden with shame and blame against those reluctant to act. This has resulted in more far-fetched solutions being proposed, such as the repeal of the Second Amendment offered by former Supreme Court associate justice John Paul Stevens. Such a forum for discussion isolates specific regions of the country, isolates their political culture, and detracts from any substantive progress being made on the state level.
In reconciling the tension between gun rights and gun control, the cultural foundation in which the respective regions of the United States approach the issue should be acknowledged and accommodated. As it stands, gun control is an incredibly contentious issue and is typically used to consolidate popular support on a partisan basis. To resist the Second Amendment by restricting an individual's right to self-preservation is to forgo Lockean principles that the United States was founded upon. Yet, to say that this sentiment cannot change with America’s fluid culture assumes the inefficiency of its democratic institutions.
Embracing federalism and enacting state-level legislation is an approach that accounts for sociopolitical and geographic national divide. In this way, amassing local support, whether it promotes or subdues the free exercise of the Second Amendment, is the most respectful and efficient manner to approach such a domestic agenda in the face of America’s mass shooting epidemics. If there is to be any progress on this issue, elected officials must adopt the approach of popular leadership rather than partisan entrenchment. Emphasizing similarities of intent rather than differences of opinion--a pursuit which is typically easier to accomplish within smaller majorities--is the best possible approach to convince the American people of the Second Amendment’s value to the individual or of its potential threat to public well-being. Until this notion is understood, nothing can be legitimately accomplished with the backing of popular support.