Many years ago, after receiving two speeding tickets in one day, I attended a court-mandated driving class. The instructor made it clear that driving a car is a privilege and not a right.

My husband and I tell our youngest child, “There’s a difference between rights and privileges. You have a right to an education. You don’t have a right to electronics.  That’s a privilege.”      

I believe owning firearms should be a privilege rather than a right.  To that end, let me make a case for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment says: “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.” The original intent of the Second Amendment was to protect ourselves against domestic governmental tyranny and to provide the first defense against foreign enemies.  

In today’s world, it would be impossible for us to be armed at the same level as our government, nor would there be any winners in a civil war fought on American soil with modern weapons. 

We had a Civil War, once, in which 750,000 American soldiers died.  In the Gettysburg address, President Lincoln set out our obligations to those men.  We owe them our steadfast allegiance to the ideal “that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  It is our sacred obligation to those people who have given their lives for our country to make our democracy work, not by armed insurrection, but through democratic processes.    

If you believe an armed populace is no longer our best defense against our  federal government becoming tyrannical, then you should consider supporting repeal of the Second Amendment.

What about the need to defend ourselves against external threats? If our goal is to have a civilian population that is prepared to defend our country, then we should learn from English history. 

Under Henry VIII, all fathers were required to buy longbows for their sons and instruct them in their use.  Under Queen Elizabeth I, all men from the age of 16 up were required to be armed and ready to be mustered.  Today, weapons are more sophisticated.  If our goal is to have a civilian militia that is trained and ready to defend us, then we ought to implement compulsory military service for all.  This will enable us to have a well-regulated citizen militia, drawn from all walks of life and all segments of society, trained to follow military discipline and ready to be deployed for the common defense.

On the other hand, if you believe that citizen militias are no longer our best defense against external threats, then you should consider supporting repeal of the Second Amendment.    

What about self-defense, hunting and recreation?

The Second Amendment, as it has been interpreted by the courts, allows Americans broadrights to own and bear arms for a range of purposes, notably self-defense, hunting and recreation.

I have many, many friends who are hunters, and I view them with respect.  Some hunt with conventional rifles and some with black-powder rifles. One of my brothers is a bow hunter. All the hunters that I know are knowledgeable and thoughtful about gun safety, wildlife and conservation.

When these responsible hunters and others like them say “I support the Second Amendment,” it is not their intent that criminal, mentally ill, and evil people should have easy access to firearms.  My request to those many responsible people is simply this:  Let us look at the harm that our country suffers from firearms, and let us do so with open minds and open hearts.

Every year, about 30,000 people in the United States are killed by firearms.  The majority of those deaths are suicides.  The Mercer University School of Medicine’s “Firearms Tutorial” states that in 2010, the United States experienced 31,513 deaths from firearms.  Of those deaths, 19,308 were suicides, 11,015 were homicides, and 600 were accidental.

Having guns in our own homes does not make us safer.  The reverse is true. A 1998  Journal of Trauma article titled “Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home,” showed that guns kept in the home were 22 time more likely to be used in unintentional shootings, murder, assault or suicide attempts than in any act of self-defense.  The American Academy of Pediatrics says “Strong scientific evidence suggests that the presence of a gun in the home of an adolescent increases the risk of suicide, even in the absence of a psychiatric diagnosis.”

The number of firearm victims has grown to such a level that rights exercised under the Second Amendment conflict with our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Unalienable rights trump man-made rights; we should repeal the Second Amendment.

With the repeal of the Second Amendment, Americans would not have a prima facie right to own firearms.  Instead, owning firearms would become a licensed privilege, rather like driving a car. One possible model for that transition is Australia, which implemented revolutionary changes to its gun laws in response to a 1996 mass shooting.

A centerpiece of Australia’s program was a gun buyback in which the government purchased and destroyed newly prohibited weapons, including all automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

No American political leader argues for a repeal of the Second Amendment, nor has there been any serious discussion about this in any mainstream forum.  Why not?  Isn’t it about time this concept made it onto the national agenda? 

I have been to parts of the world with large numbers of armed men, and I assure you that seeing men with machine guns on every corner did not make me feel safer. The facts on gun injuries and deaths tell us that the arms race that is underway in our civil society does not make us safer. Let us rather pursue the goal of changing gun ownership from a right to aprivilege, thereby bequeathing a safer country to our children.