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In the wake of the Parkland school shooting, the Second Amendment looms over us like a giant pillar of fire. It is inspiring to some and frightening to others.
At a CNN town hall on guns, a teacher from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School brought it up, asking an NRA official to define the “well regulated Militia” the amendment cites and to explain how the accused killer was part of it. Conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens called for repealing the amendment. On Thursday, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre said opponents want “to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms.”
But the attention to the Second Amendment is misplaced. What neither side in the gun debate seems to realize is that at the moment, when it comes to the sort of restrictions that lie within the zone of possibility, the Second Amendment is neither an obstacle nor a protection. It’s an irrelevance.
Federal laws regulating guns have been around for a long time, including age requirements for gun owners, a prohibition on felons and a mandatory background check for purchases from a licensed dealer.
These rules predated the Supreme Court’s momentous 2008 decision striking down the District of Columbia’s complete ban on handguns. It was the first time the court had ever ruled that a gun control statute violated the Second Amendment. The court said individuals have the right to own guns for self-defense, a right not limited to those serving in a militia.
The decision might have been the death knell of every firearms restriction on the books — which could be regarded as an infringement on “the right of the people to keep and bear
