'Guns For All Mankind'

Politico's James Hohmann is in St. Louis for the National Rifle Association Conference, at which both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich spoke yesterday.

Mr. Santorum, who recently suspended his presidential campaign, proudly announced that his sick daughter Bella is now a lifetime member of the gun group.  Bella Santorum is three years old.

Mr. Gingrich, still running, promised that he would submit a treaty to the United Nations seeking to make the right to bear arms, which is enshrined in America's second amendment, a universal human right.

"Far fewer women would be raped.  Far fewer children would be killed... and far fewer dictators would survive if people had the right to bear arms everywhere on the planet."

All of these assertions are simply wrong.  A plethora of studies have shown that higher gun ownership rates lead to higher levels of violent crime, whether one examines the developing world or even the United States itself.

Even were that not the case however, it is interesting to hear a United Nations sceptic such as Mr. Gingrich suggest that a UN decree would have a quantifiable effect on anything.  Are dictators going to start supplying their oppressed populaces with weapons, just because of Mr. Gingrich's petition?

That is of course assuming that his proposal would not be laughed out of the chamber.

The fealty with which conservative Americans in particular defend gun ownership is disappointing. Surely any concerns over the principle of individual liberty are in this case superseded by the moral imperative to limit loss of life due to violent crime.

These same individuals who call themselves 'pro-life' all too often offer enthusiastic support for the death penalty and respond with outrage to any effort to take deadly weapons off the streets.

Mr. Santorum's announcement that he had made his baby daughter a lifetime NRA member earned wild applause from yesterday's enthusiastic pro-gun audience, but for many others it would have been a deeply disturbing moment.

Mitt Romney also spoke at the conference, giving voice to a more moderate pro-gun stance.  His arguments on the issue seem positively mature, juxtaposed with the stubbornly unyielding position of many Republicans - but he is equally wrong.

There will be no lasting gun reform in the United States until conservatives are convinced of the moral imperative.  This argument will have to be made by one of their own - a popular, courageous conservative leader.

We may be waiting for quite some time.

A Lecture from the Constitutional Law Professor

President Obama, discussing the fate of his trademark health care legislation (currently before the Supreme Court), made these statements several days ago:

"Ultimately, I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

"That an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law." 

It is difficult to believe that the man who uttered those words actually taught constitutional law at a widely respected university.

First of all, it matters not one jot whether the law was passed by a strong majority.  Though, for the record, the President was dead wrong about that as well.  The law scraped through the house by just seven votes, even though the Democrats held a majority of nearly a hundred in that chamber, and it only earned the Senate's approval after weeks of back room dealing.

Aside from such quibbles however, for Mr. Obama to suggest that it would be 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinary' for the Supreme Court to overturn a law passed by Congress is so remarkable as to make one's jaw drop.

I remember learning in middle school, let alone university, that the Supreme Court's role in the American system of checks and balances is to vet laws for constitutionality.  The Court is there for the express purpose of overturning unconstitutional legislation.

Mr. Obama's statements, which he has since tried valiantly to step back from, were nothing short of ridiculous.

The President's remarks have been notably strident and partisan of late.  He should be careful, lest he shed some of his characteristic gravitas.

Obama's Mandate

President Barack Obama has two major domestic policy initiatives to his name after his first three years in office:  the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus), and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Neither of these policies are particularly popular, and this presents a significant obstacle to Mr. Obama's re-election.  Polls have consistently shown lukewarm support at best for the stimulus package, with a clear minority of Americans believing that Mr. Obama's policies have actually helped the job situation.

Similarly, Americans have consistently favoured the repeal of Obamacare by a significant majority. The individual mandate in particular is dangerously unpopular from a political perspective:

Americans overwhelmingly believe the "individual mandate", as it is often called, is unconstitutional, by a margin of 72% to 20%.

Even a majority of Democrats, and a majority of those who think the healthcare law is a good thing, believe that provision is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court this week heard oral arguments over the constitutionality of the health care law, with a decision to be handed down by the nine justices prior to the presidential election in November.

Day two of arguments was concerned solely with the individual mandate, and by all accounts proceedings went horribly wrong for the law's defenders.  Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was peppered with questions by the justices, and he often lacked satisfactory answers.

Importantly, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the so called 'swing voter' of the court, seemed to be disposed against the government's arguments.

It is almost certain that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan will rule that the mandate is constitutional.

Meanwhile, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and John Roberts are equally likely to side with the challengers.  This leaves Justice Kennedy with the deciding vote.

Thus there does seem to be a tangible risk that the individual mandate, if not the entire law, will be deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  What would this mean for the President and his chances of re-election?

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan captures what the sentiments of the American people would likely be, given a hostile decision by the court:

The constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago didn't notice the centrepiece of his agenda was not constitutional?  How did that happen?

Maybe a stinging decision is coming, maybe not, but in a purely political sense this is how it looks:  We were in crisis in 2009 - we still are - and instead of doing something strong and pertinent about our economic woes, the president wasted history's time.

With Americans largely believing that his stimulus package was ineffective, President Obama needs his healthcare law to be upheld, even if it remains unpopular.  Otherwise he will be left broken, embarrassed, and without any record of significance after a full term in office.

Gun Laws in America

Gary Younge has an interesting article at the Guardian, following the gun-related death of an unarmed black teen named Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.  The 17 year old boy was shot dead by a neighbourhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, allegedly in an act of self-defence.

Mr. Younge approaches the story from a racial perspective, identifying a number of factors that, in his view, contribute to the likelihood of this sort of event occurring:

Add to this lax gun laws, entrenched segregation, deep economic inequalities and a statute that endorses vigilantism, and a murder of this kind is inevitable.

All of these factors deserve to be considered in great depth, but one in particular has a simple solution:  gun control.

The much cited Second Amendment to the United States Constitution speaks of a citizen's right to bear arms.  To many americans, this is a sacred right.  The desire to own a gun is certainly understandable - what is more important to the average individual than the safety and protection of his or her family?

Yet we are inundated with countless examples of the negative consequences of lax gun laws, with Trayvon Martin's case being but one of many.  On a wider scale, it has been demonstrated that soft gun laws lead to much higher rates of gun violence - which disproportionately affect black people.

A 2007 analysis by the Washington-based Violence Policy Center found that states with 'weak' gun laws had the highest rates of gun ownership and the highest levels of gun deaths.  The converse was also true - strong gun laws were associated with low rates of both ownership and deaths.

These results are supported by a number of similar analyses, and it should be noted that the same conclusions apply even when the subject area is extended beyond the United States.  A 2000 study published in the Journal of Trauma found a direct correlation between gun availability and homicide rates among developed countries:

"Across 26 high-income nations, there is a strong and statistically significant association between gun availability and homicide rates."

Even here in Australia, it has become clear that gun laws have a tangible effect on the rate of gun-related deaths.  Gun laws introduced by the Howard Government in the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre lead to an acceleration in the decline of Australian gun deaths.

The evidence is therefore quite clear.  In order to reduce the prevalence of gun-related deaths in the United States, there must be tougher gun laws.  That is certainly not the only solution, and it fails to address the core causes of entrenched violence in disadvantaged communities, but it is a simple first step.

Tragically however, it will take a number of brave politicians in a number of passionately pro-gun states to enact the sort of tough gun laws required - and even if legislation is successful, the Second Amendment will always enter the picture from a judicial perspective.

One has to ask how long the bloodshed must continue before enough is considered enough.