It is time for progressives to stand up to the radical right and proclaim: “It’s our Constitution, too!”

The Tea Partiers and the radical libertarians cast themselves as so-called “constitutionalists” — possessed with unique insight into the original meaning intended by the Framers and dedication to defending the Constitution’s words against those who would ignore them in pursuit of progressive social policies. Increasingly, conservatives seek to frame the political debate as a contest between those who understand the Constitution (themselves) and those who don’t.

For example, Utah’s Tea Party Republican candidate for the Senate from Utah, Mike Lee, pledges not to vote for any bill “that I can’t justify by the text and original understanding of the Constitution,” as if his opponent has no problem defying the Constitution.
This right wing’s assertion of “ownership” of our Constitution is playing out most dramatically on the issue of federal power vs. states’ rights.

Take, for instance, the movement in state legislatures to enact so-called “Firearms Freedom” statutes. These bills, so far enacted into law in six states and proposed in over twenty others, declare that guns manufactured and possessed entirely within a state’s borders are not subject to federal law. Under the Montana version, for example, a lucrative business awaits the Montana resident who wants to manufacture unserialized and untraceable guns for sale to Montana felons without complying with Brady Act background checks. Just stamp the guns “Made In Montana” and you are good to go.

There is little doubt that the federal courts will make mincemeat of these “Firearms Freedom” laws. The first ruling came down last week, as a federal magistrate judge in Montana struck down that state’s law. Agreeing with the Brady Center’s brief, the judge found the law flatly unconstitutional under decades-old Supreme Court precedent recognizing federal authority to regulate entirely intrastate activity if exempting that activity would undercut federal regulation of interstate activity. As recently as 2005, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court reaffirmed this precedent by recognizing federal power to prohibit the purely local production and medical use of marijuana authorized by state law.

The “Firearms Freedom” laws are more in tune with those who opposed ratification of our Constitution than with the Constitution itself. After all, one of the central concerns leading to adoption of our Constitution was that the earlier Articles of Confederation gave the Congress insufficient authority to legislate on behalf of the entire nation. The Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification did so largely because they opposed the new powers the Constitution conferred on the federal government. (Today’s “Federalist Society” of conservative lawyers more accurately should be called the “Anti-Federalist Society.”)

In fact, the contemporary right can legitimately claim “ownership” only of the losing side in the great constitutional debate over federal power vs. states’ rights. Defending our Constitution means defending its specific grant of power to Congress to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several states” and to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” for executing that power. It also means defending the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, by which federal law “shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . .” Can there be any more direct expression of contempt for the Supremacy Clause than the premise of the “Firearms Freedom” statutes that individual states have the authority to determine for themselves the extent of federal power?

Nor can the right find refuge in the Tenth Amendment, which has inspired the passionate devotion of the Tea Partiers with little evidence that they have actually read its text. It provides only that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution” are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Of course, nothing in these words diminishes the powers that are “delegated to the United States.”

It is time for progressives to stand up to the right’s misappropriation of our Constitution and to claim for themselves the label of “constitutionalists.” After all, proponents of a stronger federal government were the winners of the Founding-era debate. The radical right of the modern era can trace its lineage only to the losers.

For more information, see Dennis Henigan’s Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)

Yesterday was the first day of school at Mumford High School in Detroit.  Instead of the usual beginning-of-school jitters, the students had another, all too terrible reason to be nervous:  two of their fellow classmates were shot just outside the school.  The Detroit Free-Press reports on the shooting:

Two students were shot outside the building on the city’s west side — a 14-year-old girl was grazed on the face and a 16-year-old boy was shot in the buttocks, according to Detroit Public Schools officials. The students were listed in temporary serious condition at Sinai-Grace Hospital, said Sgt. Eren Stephens, a spokeswoman for the Detroit Police Department.

The article continues, citing one freshman who now doesn’t want to go back to school:

About an hour after the Mumford shooting, Mumford freshman Justin Ealy, 15, watched throngs of police scour the concrete at the corner of Wyoming and Santa Clara streets.  Ealy, 15, said he was walking after school when he heard gunshots and saw one of the victims — the boy — being attended to after the shooting.  It was his first day of high school. Ealy said he doesn’t want to return to Mumford. “I don’t even like this school,” he said.

Learn more about guns in schools and youth gun violence.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must be wondering what else he needed to do to make his pandering to the gun lobby pay off politically. In a recent statement, the National Rifle Association has made it official. Despite Reid’s recent record of carrying the NRA’s water on Capitol Hill, the gun lobby will not endorse the Majority Leader for reelection against his Tea Party Republican challenger, Sharron Angle.

When it comes to advancing the NRA’s agenda from the Democratic side of the aisle, Harry Reid recently has had few peers. Time and again, Reid has supported Republican-sponsored amendments to weaken the nation’s gun laws – from the Coburn Amendment to allow loaded guns in national parks, to the Thune Amendment to undercut existing state law restrictions on concealed carry, to the Ensign Amendment to gut the District of Columbia’s gun laws. Reid has used every means at his disposal to block Senate consideration of bills sponsored by Democratic Senators to close the lethal loopholes in our gun laws – even legislation to bar gun purchases by persons on the terrorist watch list or to extend Brady background checks to private purchases at gun shows.

As distasteful as Reid’s record has been, it apparently was not good enough for the NRA. According to Chris Cox, Director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, Reid could not be forgiven his support of Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both strongly opposed by the gun lobby for failing to commit themselves to its absolutist vision of Second Amendment rights. The NRA is not satisfied with the power to dictate our nation’s gun policy. It also insists on the power to determine the composition of the Supreme Court.

Senator Reid just learned (the hard way) a few lessons about pandering to the gun lobby.

First, no matter how much you appease the NRA, it will always want more.

Second, because the NRA serves an extremist political ideology, you cannot successfully appease it without becoming extremist yourself.

Third, as a Democrat, you are always vulnerable to being “outgunned” by an even more extreme pro-gun Republican. Harry Reid, meet Sharron Angle.

Although Chris Cox’s statement about the NRA’s refusal to endorse Reid mentions only his support of President Obama’s two Supreme Court nominees, it may well be that Reid’s recent attack ad against Angle’s Second Amendment nuttiness also played a role. Angle has become infamous for her interpretation of the Second Amendment, which she has said is intended to ensure that the people have the means to engage in armed revolt “when our government becomes tyrannical,” suggesting that the time to employ such “Second Amendment remedies” may arrive if politicians like Harry Reid are not voted out of office. “[T]he nation is arming,” says Angle, because the people “are afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways.”

Reid has responded with a powerful attack ad in which a police officer (and self-described Republican and NRA member) calls Angle’s rhetoric “way over the line” and “crazy” because “what she’s actually talking about is armed resistance.” Indeed, she is.

The irony here is that there is little daylight between Angle’s insurrectionist views and those of the NRA itself. Some years ago, an NRA official told the New York Times, “The Second Amendment is literally a loaded gun held to the heads of government.” Just last year, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre put it this way to the Conservative Political Action Conference, “Freedom is nothing but dust in the wind till it’s guarded by the blue steel and dry powder of a free and armed people . . . Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules.” Was Angle saying anything different? It may be that the NRA simply could not endorse Senator Reid once he had attacked its core belief that the Second Amendment really is about armed revolt against our government.

Senator Reid’s political advisors may still believe his record of weakening our gun laws will help him with gun owners, regardless of his being snubbed by the NRA. But it is a myth that politicians sacrifice the support of gun owners by supporting sensible gun laws. There is evidence that Reid himself once understood this. As recently as 2004, for example, he voted to close the “gun show loophole” by extending Brady Law background checks to private sales at gun shows.

A revealing survey taken last year by Republican messaging maven Frank Luntz shows that most gun owners – even most NRA members – support many of the gun control measures Reid has successfully blocked in recent years. For example, Luntz found that 69% of self-described NRA members, and 86% of gun owners who do not belong to the NRA, support closing the “gun show loophole.”

So, Senator Reid, what did you gain by pandering to the NRA? Only your pivotal place in the recent failure of our political leadership to address the continuing tragedy of 300 Americans killed and injured by gunshots every passing day.

For more information, see Dennis Henigan’s Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)

The Ventura County Star (CA) editorialized about the nine-year-old victim of a local accidental shooting and reminded us all about the dangers of having a gun in the home, especially ones that are not properly secured:

Although he may not realize it yet, a 9-year-old Camarillo boy is extremely lucky to be alive today after being shot in the face with a .45-caliber pistol… Police are looking into whether the gun was secured and how the 13-year-old got his hands on it. Under the law, a loaded firearm in the home must be secured in a locked container, disabled with a locking device, or otherwise reasonably secured.

What happened in this Camarillo home will certainly serve as a warning and a lesson that this family and the two boys will never forget. It is also one that other parents, guardians and children would do well to note.

The latest U.S. data available show 3,184 children and teens were killed by gunfire in 2006. Of those shootings,154 were determined to be accidents, says the Children’s Defense Fund. A study last year found that more than 1.7 million children in the U.S. live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns…

Another recent study revealed these sobering facts: In homes where a gun was present, 39 percent of youngsters knew where it was stored, and another 22 percent said they had handled it despite an adult warning to stay away.

Clearly, the decision to keep a handgun or a rifle in the home is not one that should be taken lightly. It’s one that demands adults be extra vigilant in making sure children can’t get their hands on these weapons.

Learn more about unintentional shootings, the risks of having guns in the home, and kids and gun violence.

Who could possibly be opposed to closing the “gun show loophole”?

What individual or group would try to stand in the way of legislation that would make it harder for convicted felons and other dangerous persons to obtain all sorts of dangerous weapons?

Whose interest does it serve to allow “private sellers” at gun shows to sell AK-47s, TEC-9’s, Mac-10s and other types of high-powered and semi-automatic guns to buyers, without requiring them to undergo a Brady background check?

These were the kinds of questions that House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), asked over and over at a Congressional forum on “The Gun Show Loophole Closing Act” in Chicago on August 19. Make no mistake. The NRA bosses and their allies oppose closing the “gun show loophole.” They have complained on their blogs and in press releases about it, while ignoring the testimony of law enforcement officials who report that huge caches of guns are bought by, or supplied to, criminals from gun shows.

The bill to close the “gun show loophole,” introduced by Representatives Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Michael Castle (R-DE), has more than 100 cosponsors, including U.S. Senate Candidate Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL).

Last week’s forum was chaired by Bobby Scott (D-VA), Subcommittee Chairman on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, and attended by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL.), and Rep. Conyers.

Fellow Judiciary Committee Member Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), convened the forum, which — like the one held in Washington, D.C. July 14 — was an opportunity for the public and congressional representatives to learn more about this huge threat to the safety of our families and communities.

Weeks before the Chicago forum, opponents to this commonsense legislation were contacted by House staff and invited to testify. Opponents had protested about not being invited to weigh in at the D.C. hearing. And yet, when extended the opportunity in Chicago, they and their protests suddenly evaporated. As Rep. Conyers pleaded for opponents of the legislation to speak up, a representative of the Illinois Rifle Association stood up. Rep. Conyers insisted he come forward and make his case. He declined to speak publicly, saying only that he would prefer to talk to the congressman in private.

I’m not surprised. After the testimonies of gun violence victims such as Colin Goddard, who was shot four times at Virginia Tech, and Annette Nance-Holt, whose 16-year-old son, Blair, was killed in Chicago while shielding a friend from gunfire, members of the Chicago and Illinois police departments, and Thomas Mannard of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, the IRA rep must have realized that the flagrant flaws in his logic would have been exposed.

It’s not easy to speak after hearing Colin Goddard talk about why he was there: “I learned that while I’m associated with the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history — 32 dead — there are, on average, another 32 people killed by gun violence every day in America. And last year, out of the 258 public school students who were shot in Chicago, 32 were killed. But more importantly, I’ve understood the hard way how even just one homicide, one dead family member, can change the life of that family forever. And this is why I do what I do: to give a voice to those who’ve already been silenced and to those family members who are still too overwhelmed to speak out.”

Congressman Quigley is to be commended for pursuing this forum. Although Illinois has effectively already taken sensible steps to close the “gun show loophole” problem, Rep. Quigley understands that residents of his state are affected by weak laws in neighboring states and that communities across our nation would be even better off if we made it harder on a federal level for dangerous people to stockpile guns.

Chicago has seen some of worst gun violence of any city in America in recent years. This July, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune, more than 300 people were shot, 33 of them killed. The easy access to guns by dangerous people continues to exist because of our nation’s weak gun laws and the weak guns laws of so many states. The anemic laws in neighboring jurisdictions make it hard for cities to see the kind of progress that they could be seeing. And these anemic laws make it hard for residents of those communities to experience the kind of safety that they deserve a right to.

Help us prevent more gun violence. Click here to find out how you can help us close the “gun show loophole,” and answer the closed-door arguments of those who would oppose it.