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The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Oh hell. It happened again, didn't it? As we knew it would.

Red Lake: another fucked-up kid, another sleepy High School, another handful of weapons snatched from the rack when the anger became too much to bear.

We are such a diseased species. We really are.

You try to understand, don't you? I logged on and typed 'the right to bear arms' into Google. It took me to a bunch of sites full of constitutional experts with considered and apparently rational arguments for less control of guns, not more. It turns out that Columbine and Red Lake could have been avoided if we were all free to carry as much weaponry as we liked, where we liked, when we liked.

This is such transparent nonsense I'm ashamed to repeat it here. And yet it speaks to the pioneer spirit - that freedom to wander into the wilderness with only your wits and your weapons to protect you - on which so much that is good about America is founded. You can understand why they're reluctant to undermine it, even when innocent children die.

And it is a good spirit: at its best, America is the most open-hearted, free-thinking, generous society in the world. Built on the soundest political principles the human race has yet succeeded in devising.

But that don't make it perfect. Which is presumably why the founding fathers made darn sure the constitution could be amended from time to time. Way back in the late 18th century, as I understand it, they needed a militia - so they wrote in an amendment promising the right to 'keep and bear arms'. Which was probably right and proper given the political circumstances of the day.

It's not right and proper now. We're more than two centuries down the evolutionary road, and it behoves us to keep refining the framework of society. That doesn't mean removing the fundamental principles, it means amending their execution. Which might mean amending an amendment or two.

Of course crackpots with guns aren't a uniquely American problem. The US has Columbine and Red Lake; the UK has Hungerford and Dunblane. The difference lies in the reaction: the use and ownership of firearms is now severely restricted in the UK. True, that creates new problems - like an illegal trade in unlicensed weapons - but the fact remains it is now very difficult for alienated loners to build up a personal armoury in their bedroom. Which tips the odds in favour of the kids in the local primary school.

It's not as if it would require that much amending. Nothing wrong with bearing arms, if you're an Olympic marksman or a farmer in need of a shotgun or you like to go deerhunting on a weekend. Just make people show a legitimate reason for owning one. Don't let anyone own more guns than they need for that activity. Don't allow guns to be sold to anyone who happens to wander into the shop. Don't let anyone sell guns that were designed purely as weapons of war. Don't license guns for inappropriate uses. Make secure storage a requirement of the license. And make gun owners prove they have the necessary social responsibility to keep and bear a machine whose purpose is to kill.

I don't know all the answers. But there are always answers there, when a society admits its flaws and seeks to make a change.

Meanwhile, there's a scar on America's soul. They call it the Second Amendment.