The past week’s string of horrific mass shootings already has triggered a predictable set of reactions from across the political spectrum—but especially among Republicans. GOP leaders typically frame the question of gun violence as an outgrowth of personal or cultural pathologies—mental health, the decline of family values, and video game addiction, among other maladies. Focusing the debate on these issues conveniently deflects attention from any government efforts to effectively regulate access to guns, which Republican politicians and the conservative donor class regard as both counterproductive and contrary to the original understanding of the Second Amendment. Yes, many Republicans and gun rights advocates are convinced that Americans need greater access to guns and fewer regulations to constrain gun ownership.



Democrats, meanwhile, will fall back on some sensible, but decidedly incremental suggestions for change: universal background checks, “red flag” laws permitting family or friends to temporarily remove guns from individuals deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, and assault weapons bans. The stalemate over gun policy, particularly in a new era of weaponized white supremacist terror, feels woefully unequal to the real and immediate challenges before us. The time has surely arrived for some bold thinking about this problem.

As part of this comprehensive reappraisal, we need to tackle head-on the most stubborn political obstacle to meaningful progress on fashioning effective gun laws: the myths attached to the Second Amendment to the Constitution. This long-embellished mythology is so powerful that before his death, retired Justice John Paul Stevens even suggested repealing or rewriting this feature of our Constitution to facilitate this process of change. Some commentators indeed interpreted Stevens’s suggestion as a vindication of the fatalist view that the Second Amendment will always thwart effective reform efforts: How can we do anything significant and not run straight into “America’s First Freedom?”





But the actual background to the constitutional protection of the right to bear arms tells a very different story. Although Republicans and gun rights activists love to invoke the Second Amendment, few understand much about its fascinating history. We’ve settled for much too long on a Hollywood version of the early American republic that features trigger-happy Founders such as Thomas Jefferson and frontier folk heroes such as David Crockett, Kentucky rifle in one hand and bowie knife in the other. Yet the prevalent mythology and the historical reality seldom line up. Exposing these myths is of course essential to fostering a calmer and more intelligent debate about future gun policy—but beyond that, it also turns out the Founders supported a quite robust view of gun regulation that would surprise most Americans. In fact, contrary to the potted propaganda now passing as serious history and effectively marketed by the gun lobby, some of the Founding generation’s approaches to regulation may offer guidance for how to move beyond our current impasse.

Supporters of an anachronistic libertarian reading of the Second Amendment have made Thomas Jefferson the unlikely poster boy for their cause. As was true for many in the Founding generation, Jefferson was certainly fond of his guns. He famously wrote that “as to the species of exercise, I advise the gun.” To promote a healthy body, he recommended that “your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.” But Jefferson was not suggesting that one pack heat when heading down to the local tavern to pick up the latest political news. Jefferson was a large land owner who lived in the western part of Virginia; he owned almost 5,000 acres of largely contiguous land. Walking with a gun in a heavily forested area one third of the size of Manhattan is rather different than being armed in a Walmart, county fair, or bar. Moreover, Jefferson understood the difference between traveling armed in a densely populated areas and hiking or riding in the mountains of his home state—a distinction Jefferson himself drew out in a letter he wrote about a fine pair of Turkish pistols he owned: