Letter to the Editor: Morton Grove Was Right to Ban Handguns

In 1981, the village leaders of Morton Grove enacted a harmless, defensive law that quickly escalated out of control and raised the village to national and international prominence.

The village received an application for a permit to open a gun store. The Board of Trustees and administrators didn’t want a gun store in their village and assembled to devise a strategy to block the permit. They considered everything from outright denial to discouraging the applicant from pursuing the request. Denial might bring down the full force of the National Rifle Association, gun manufacturers and other gun enthusiast groups with the means of drowning the village in legal costs. One administrator suggested that banning handguns might discourage the applicant.

The Morton Grove trustees voted and passed the ban. Only one trustee dissented. Morton Grove citizens who were there at the time believe the public was almost equally divided on the issue. The expected challenges came, but the challengers had to bear the largest burden of the court costs. The court upheld the village’s action.  The Appeals Court also upheld the action. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case making the ban legal.

In 1881, exactly 100 years earlier, a gunfight took place in Tombstone, Arizona that become one of the most famous gunfights in U.S. history. It was known as the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral. The immediate cause was alleged troublemakers violating the town’s ban on guns within the city limits. Those involved were the town marshall Virgil Earp and his deputies, Wyatt and Morgan Earp and Doc. Holliday on one side, and members of the Clanton and McLaury families on the other. The latter were suspected of several bank and stage coach robberies and livestock rustling.

Probably Doc. Holliday, a man with a terminal disease and a death wish, fired the first shot unprovoked. Three of the Clanton and McLaury clans were killed. Two that were unarmed escaped harm.  All of the marshall’s group, except Wyatt, were wounded.

The point is, banning guns, even in the Wild West, was accepted and practiced.  

I’m a gun owner and have been since I received a single-shot .22 calibre rifle when I was 12 years old. I’m also a linguist. As a linguist, I must disagree with the National Rifle Association and other gun proponents that individuals are guaranteed the right to own guns by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. In the English language, the subject of a sentence is the first noun except in the passive voice. The Second Amendment is not written in the passive voice. The first noun is “militia.”  The Second Amendment begins: “A well regulated Militia . . . .” That means there will be multiple laws guiding, defining and restricting the militia.

The Second Amendment goes on to define the militia’s purpose.  “. . . being necessary to the security of a free State . . . “ .  Then comes the clause that gun enthusiasts claim is the heart of the sentence, even though it appears in a subordinate position. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Founding Fathers had an aversion to standing armies after their experiences with King George’s armies. George Washington warned that standing armies are the greatest threat to a nation.  Consequently “militias” are an integral part of the Constitution and mentioned four times in addition to the Second Amendment reference. Article One (which defines the duties of the Legislative Branch), Sect. 8, Clause 15: “Congress shall provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.”  To make sure the armies are under Federal control only temporarily, Clause 12 states: “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.”

Finally, to ensure loyalty remains with the states, Clause 16 states:  “. . . reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”

The right of the people to keep and bear arms refers to those members of well-regulated state militias, citizen soldiers, as opposed to a federal standing army. A standing navy was deemed necessary. The government currently is in violation of nearly every one of those clauses and has no interest in a literal (strict) interpretation of the Constitution.

Individual rights to gun ownership fall under the Tenth Amendment, not the Second, and  “. . . are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

The people of Morton Grove were within their rights to ban guns. The NRA is wrong and the current Supreme Court was wrong to reverse that interpretation. The  grammar-challenged Roberts’ Court is the first Supreme Court to rule that the Second Amendment refers to individuals, not individuals as components of a militia.            

In 5-4 decisions, the Roberts' Court overruled Washington D.C.’s gun laws in 2008 and a Chicago gun ban in 2010. Our politicians and judges too often are ignoring the Constitution or viewing it more as a guide, to the detriment of our freedom.