Gunning for the right to bear arms

ON THE steps of the Supreme Court in Washington DC last month, demonstrators gathered with banners declaring: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away" and "Forget 911 Dial .357" – a reference to both the United States' emergency telephone number and a popular Magnum handgun. Americans, as we have learned over the years, love their guns.

According to the FBI, there are more than 200 million privately owned guns in the US, population 300 million. When the number of illegal guns in circulation is added to those of the military, law- enforcement agencies and museums, it has been estimated there are 12 guns for every man, woman and child.

Charlton Heston, who died at the weekend, was among the most vocal advocates for Americans' right to bear arms. As president of the National Rifle Association, the veteran actor would hold an antique flintlock rifle above his head and declare that the government could get it if they could pry it "from my cold, dead hands".

Now, in what is expected to be a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court is examining – for only the second time in its history – the constitutional right to bear arms which has turned America over the past two hundred years into, perhaps, the most gun-obsessed country on Earth.

When Michael Moore explored the nation's gun culture in the documentary Bowling For Columbine, he exposed a society where you can get a free handgun when you open a bank account.

The film was a response to the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, when two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 12 young people and a teacher before committing suicide.

America is a nation that pays a heavy price for permitting its citizens to be armed. On average 11,000 people are shot dead each year. In Britain, despite fears of rising gun crime, 50 people were shot dead in England and Wales in 2006. In 1996, as a result of the Dunblane massacre, handguns were banned entirely with more than 160,000 handed in to the police for destruction. However, an entirely different mindset operates in America, where, in light of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were shot dead by Ch Seung Hui, a number of commentators argued that the problem was not that there are too many guns in American society, but too few. What, they argued, might have happened if the students and teachers were armed that fateful day?

The difference between Britain and America's attitude to guns is that, while we view them, broadly, as the necessary tools of the state, possessed by the military for the defence of the nation or by special units within the police, Americans, particularly those in the southern and western states, view guns as a source of recreation and a necessity for defence. There are historical and mythological reasons for this passion. While the American West was tamed by ranchers and farmers, miners and homesteaders who may never have fired a gun in their lives, the popular image is that the West was won by the cowboy toting his revolver.

The answer to the question of why American citizens are permitted to own guns in the first place lies in the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights introduced in 1789, which reads: "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." So does this mean that all Americans may own guns, or only those who serve in a militia?

Garry Willis, a celebrated author and professor of history at Northwestern University, who has written of the origin of the term "bear arms", believes it was envisioned to refer to a militia or army.

"Bearing arms is such a synonym for waging war that Shakespeare can call a just war 'justborne arms' and a civil war 'self-borne arms'," Willis writes, adding "one does not bear arms against a rabbit".

However, over the past 220 years, each of the 50 states in America has individually interpreted the Second Amendment with restrictions that differ widely.

The strictest gun control in America is to be found in the District of Columbia, where there is a near-total ban on the ownership of handguns. If an individual in Washington wishes to protect his home he can legally purchase a rifle or shotgun, but it must be kept disassembled and unloaded, or trigger-locked.

Dick Heller, a federal security guard who carries a handgun while protecting his fellow citizens and wants one at home to protect himself, disagrees with the law and, with the support of Robert Levy, a multimillionaire, has taken his case to the Supreme Court.

"I want to be able to defend myself and my wife from violent criminals, and the constitution says I have a right to do that by keeping a gun in my home," Mr Heller says.

The stakes could not be any higher. The lawyers for the District of Columbia have argued that the Supreme Court should rule that Americans have a right to bear arms only in service of a government militia. The consequence of this would be to turn the law on its head and threaten the legal right of every citizen to own a gun. "It is a potentially huge, landmark decision, maybe the only decision in our lifetime in which the supreme court will tell us what the original meaning of the constitution is," said Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor.

A ruling is expected in June and will likely support the idea that guns may be owned for personal protection. During the hearing last month, Chief Justice John Roberts asked the District of Columbia's lawyer how long it takes to switch off a trigger-lock on a gun (which requires entering a three-digit code) when a criminal is climbing through the window. The lawyers replied that it would take about three seconds.

Presumably, retorted Mr Roberts, you must first turn on the lamp and pick up your reading glasses?