Of arms and the man

Like, I'm sure, any sane person, I was appalled and grieved at the news of the mass shooting at a Floridian school. So many young lives which will never come to fruition, so much potential untapped. Let's not get too starry-eyed about the death of children - no doubt some of them would have turned out to be profoundly average. But we will never know. It is a tragedy, but it was not a surprise.

Let me say at the outset that I am not a lawyer, much less a legal expert on the US Constitution. However, this all stems from the Second Amendment, which is runs as follows: "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." That's it: 27 words. If you're picky - and, my God, people are - the version ratified by the States and given the imprimatur of Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, reads thus: 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."

Anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge and sense can see why the Founding Fathers felt it necessary to insert this amendment into the Constitution. America was, after all, born out of rebellion, out of ordinary people rising up against what they believed was an unjust government and casting off their shackles (well, white people's shackles - slavery would remain for many decades). So far, so 1789.

It is often said, both approvingly and disapprovingly, that the United Kingdom doesn't have a written constitution. This is both true and untrue. There is no single document to which you can point and say, Here, this is how we are governed. But there is Magna Carta. There is the Bill of Rights. There is the Act of Union. There is the whole corpus of the common law. More recently there are the acts which created the devolved assemblies and governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (though of course the last is still in abeyance after 13 months of suspension). So there is a body of work, a Haynes manual, if you like, to tell you how to run the UK.

Americans - is it wrong to say stereotypically? - are more literal-minded. They have the Constitution, with all its amendments, and a Supreme Court which interprets it. A single document, and not a very long one at that. So when a question crops up, they can simply flick to the appropriate clause and say, Yes, this is what the answer is. Of course, there are differing approaches. Some lawyers and judges work from the exact text of the Constitution, simply from the words of the page. Others interpret it on the basis of what the Founding Fathers meant (what we would call in the UK "legislative intent").

Why is any of this important? It matters because 17 people are dead, and they're dead because the Second Amendment allowed a deeply disturbed 19-year-old access to an assault rifle. Was he part of a well regulated militia? Was he necessary to the security of a free state? Certainly, his Second Amendment rights hadn't been infringed. He bought the AR-15 legally, and kept it locked up at home. Thank God for that. God forbid it should fall into the wrong hands.

One elderly Floridian, a man who has hunted since the 1960s and owns 10 guns, was quoted by the BBC as saying: "I just don't know what the answer is. And there may not be one". Of all the stupid things to say. Of course there is an answer: more restrictive gun laws, such as a swathe of civilised countries, from the UK to Australia, have introduced. Do you go hunting with an assault rifle?

But but but, Americans will say, Second Amendment rights. I'll make my position perfectly clear: the Second Amendment was understandable in 1789 but is no longer relevant, nor is it - how I hate this phrase - fit for purpose. It allows military-grade weapons into the hands of disturbed individuals who use them to commit mass murder. The horror in Florida was the 19th school shooting in the US in 2018. Think about that. It's only mid-February.

The US Constitution is amendable. The Second Amendment is just that, for fuck's sake. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed when people decided it didn't work - do the same with the Second. I don't say there should be a total prohibition on the owning of firearms. There may be circumstances, though they are vanishingly few, where it is legitimate. My ex-girlfriend's father, in Northern Ireland, was a firearms enthusiast, and had a sideline in culling deer, so he owned several guns. Not surprisingly, for Northern Ireland, there were strict regulations on that ownership. The guns had to be registered, and kept either at a gun club or in an approved safe at his home. I dare say he had to undergo pretty rigorous background checks before purchasing them too. And all of this is quite right. Guns are dangerous things, potentially murderous, and their sale and ownership should be strictly regulated.

After the horror of Dunblane back in 1996 (I still remember it vividly, so shocking was it), the UK Government vastly tightened the laws, bringing in the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which banned all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons in England, Scotland and Wales. Do you know what? We haven't had a mass shooting since. Gun crime, while a problem in some isolated areas, is not a regular feature of British life. The US has liberal firearms laws, and the highest rate of gun-related homicide in the "developed" world. Coincidence? You tell me.

There are some hardcore libertarians who will ignore rather than refute these arguments. Freedom is more important. I know someone, an American, from university who said on Facebook after a previous massacre "The guns are worth the death". That I cannot accept. I don't feel any less free than a US citizen, and, to be honest, if we ever became a dictatorship or police state, my having a handgun wouldn't be the solution to the problem. Governments have way better kit than their citizens.

The solution is there. It has worked in other countries. These endless, senseless tragedies need not proceed in an unbroken line over the horizon. Make the Constitution fit for the 21st century. Repeal the Second Amendment. Or are the guns worth the death?