Whose Freedom?

First off, my heartfelt condolences to the Virginia Tech shooting victims and their families. None of you deserved such a fate -- in fact, no one does.

The coming days will undoubtedly include a renewed call for tighter gun controls -- if not an outright ban, then much greater restrictions on gun acquisition and use. This call happens every time a mass shooting like Virginia Tech or Columbine occurs. People get outraged for a while, and then the furor fades away again, as we move on to more immediate concerns and tell ourselves that such a thing can't happen to us. But it can happen to anybody, especially as long as we have such lax controls on firearms. The general indifference of our population, as well as exceedingly weak-willed politicians who are unwilling to stand up to the mighty gun lobby, essentially ensures that chronic gun violence will continue to plague our country for the indefinite future.

The coming days will undoubtedly also include the gun lobby defending its Consitutional right to bear arms, as spelled out in the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Gun owners insist they have the right to own and use a gun to defend themselves, and any gun control legislation restricts their freedom. I don't know how many gun owners there are in America, but I'd guess it's far less than a majority of the population. So a minority of the population thinks gun control restricts their freedom. Legally, that minority has an arguable point.

But what about the freedom of every single person in America? What about the freedom from danger, the freedom from fear? Don't we all have the right to safely and quietly go about our daily lives without the fear of being gunned down in a random act of gun violence? Unfortunately, unlike the 2nd Amendment's more explicit grant, such a right to safety was not specifically granted in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Or wasn't it? Check out the less-noticed but no less legally valid 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Gun owners have the legal right to keep and bear arms. But the 9th Amendment checks this, as its wording can be reasonably interpreted to prevent those taking advantage of gun rights to "deny or disparage" the rights "retained by the people." And surely one right retained by the people is the inherent right to safety -- a right which is routinely denied and disparaged by the millions of guns floating around which are readily available to opportunisitic criminals, or to anyone just looking to settle an argument or correct a grievance.

An individual's rights are all well and good, just as long as they don't infringe the rights of others. And private gun ownership infringes the rights of all us.