Guns kill people

The US National Rifle Association defends the right to bear arms on the grounds that it is not guns which kill people, but people who kill people. Well, of course guns don’t kill people, providing that they are kept locked up, preferably in a locked vault whose key has been thrown away.

Assuming the guns are for self-defence rather than for maiming or killing other living beings, if you are armed or known to be likely armed, it is more likely that your assailant will be armed, too, and since assailants don’t usually warn you before shooting you, I don’t see how having a gun is a possible protection at all; rather it is a weapon intended to be used aggressively, not defensively.

It is precisely for this reason that resistance to arming British police is so strong. Britain has among the lowest gun crime figures in the world. It also likely has the most stringent firearms legislation. UK police are unarmed and gun ownership is extremely low per head of population.

The US second amendment states: “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.”

This implies that the right to bear arms is only justified in the context of a well-regulated militia, in other words an organised body that exists for the common defence of the freedom of a State. It is therefore the right of the People to bear arms collectively, not “people” – i.e. individuals. Since the individual is not necessarily part of a militia, the individual’s right to bear arms is therefore restricted. Rightly so, since unregulated armed individuals or groups could in themselves be a threat to the State.

So the individual’s right to bear arms is not enshrined in the American Constitution. Amending the Constitution to make that clear would be a good idea.

TREVOR RIGG Greenbank Gardens, Edinburgh