Congress must act

Gun enthusiasts are probably right that no new regulation will be the panacea we are looking for to significantly reduce the approximate 33,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. each year, especially with an estimated 400 million guns already in Americans’ possession that are not going anywhere.

However, national legislation that closes the loopholes in a background check for any gun purchase, alerts local law enforcement to potentially violent behavior by those in possession of a firearm, and places reasonable limits on the rounds of ammunition to be squeezed off, does not violate anyone’s Second Amendment rights, and may reduce the 33,000 annual deaths by a thousand or two.

To not do so is to continue to render the potentially saved lives as sacrificial lambs to the extremism of the gun lobby. The no-compromise crowd may think the current Supreme Court, flush with current or former Federalist Society members, has finally interpreted the Second Amendment correctly, but 100 justices over the previous two centuries concluded that Chicago and Cheyenne, Wyoming, could appropriately enforce different sets of gun rules. They were not all political hacks.

In 1950, one of those justices, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, cited Justice Robert H. Jackson, who wrote that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Let’s live up to those words. While we all have to live within the parameters set forth by this Supreme Court, Congress can and should pass reasonable gun reforms to literally stop at least some of the bleeding.

— David Meyerholz, Virginia Beach