Right to Bear Arms Part 1: Protection

375 H&H cartridge in bear track. Bighorn Mountain Range, Wyoming. Photo by Scott Beretz.

All Americans have the right to protection. That’s not a controversial statement—we all have the right to protection of property, self, and loved ones. All of us. Underserved communities. Women. Rural areas. City centers. All of us. 

Now for a more nuanced question to consider. Who is responsible to provide that protection? 

This answer needs to be specific. Because if “someone” isn’t identified to have the responsibility to provide protection, will they be ready? Will they respond to the call?

Who responds to calls from underserved communities? Do those communities feel comfortable enough with their treatment by uniformed officers to place the phone call?

What about women who are easily overpowered by their aggressor? Who is their protector?

Who responds, in a timely manner, to a call for help in response to a quick moving predator in a rural area?

Some might consider this the role of law enforcement. 

The 2005 US Supreme Court case Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, tells the tale of Jessica Lenahan-Gonzales. During divorce proceedings Ms. Lenahan-Gonzales obtained a restraining order against her husband, outside of visitation periods. He had been stalking her and their daughters. 

One evening Ms. Lenahan-Gonzales’ husband kidnapped their three daughters. Ms. Lenahan-Gonzales called the Castle Rock police department multiple times to request officers enforce the restraining order and search for and retrieve the daughters. The officers refused to act. 

In the middle of the night the husband drove to the police station, engaged in a gunfight with officers, and died during the encounter. Officers searched his vehicle and found the bodies of the three daughters. The husband had murdered them. 

Heartbreaking. Ms. Lenahan-Gonzales sued the town and police department of Castle Rock for failure to enforce the restraining order. Courts at different levels weighed in, and the US Supreme Court heard the case. 

In the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision they identified that the police had no requirement to enforce the restraining order. 

This is nearly unbelievable. Or maybe just a Colorado technicality. Then it happened again this year in Uvalde, Texas. Radiolab released a great podcast this past summer on the lack of requirement to respond and there’s a link to it in the comments. 

If the police have no requirement to enforce court orders and protect citizens, who is responsible to protect American lives and property?

Let’s consider another example. 

Just this last week President Biden pardoned Beverly Ann Ibn-Tamas. Ms. Ibn-Tamas had been convicted of murder in the death of her husband, Dr. Ibn-Tamas. She used a firearm.

Many news outlets reported that President Biden “pardoned a murderer.”

The rest of the story is Ms. Ibn-Tamas was pregnant at the time, and her husband Dr. Ibn-Tamas was physically and emotionally abusing her. A medical doctor, beating his wife and mother of their unborn child. Side note: Ms. Ibn-Tamas’ case ended up as groundbreaking in Battered Woman’s Syndrome, which is similar to PTSD. 

What was Ms. Ibn-Tamas to do?

In scenarios of escalating violence there are options. Keep in mind there are likely no “good situations,” but one may have choices of options. 

One could choose to do nothing and hope for the best. 

One could choose to run away. 

One could choose to attempt to enlist aid from an external actor such as the police, knowing they have no requirement to act. 

One could choose an alternate force option such as a barricade. 

And one could choose to defend themselves, their property, and their loved ones. You don’t have a right to protection from an external actor, but you do have a right to bear arms. 

This right is foundational to America. We are both too large in population, and too large in size, to provide adequate government protection of citizens in both densely populated cities and remote rural regions. 

Early America knew this without question, and the US Congress established our right to bear arms for individual and collective security. At the time of the birth of the nation Congress knew there could be no collective security without individual security–the same is still true. The US Congress ratified the Second Amendment to the Constitution in 1791. 

There is current debate whether the right to bear arms applies to the military and National Guard only, or to the general populace. There was no debate in 1791. To further highlight this point, in 1792 the US Congress passed a law requiring every able bodied man eligible to serve in a militia, to arm themselves and serve, for both individual and collective security. The law required that Americans arm themselves for protection.

Were there registration laws? Yes. Each weapon had to be registered. Early America had stronger gun control laws than we have today. And we could reasonably strengthen requirements to attempt to reduce gun violence.

Were there laws discriminating against minority groups sharing the same right to bear arms? Yes, for many more years. This remains a foundational cause of distrust between minority groups and armed factions today. I believe all Americans have the right to bear arms.

There are factions of Americans who argue we have come too far since the birth of our nation to continue to bear arms. The gun violence in America breaks my heart, and we all hope for a world without gun violence in our neighborhoods. But as a nation the foundation of our individual and collective security, or protection, has not changed. If dissenting factions of Americans choose to attempt to change the right, they need to first consider protection and security of Americans. America’s collective security is the armed citizen. I believe in our right to bear arms because when you call for help and no one answers, there may be no other option.

May God bless the United States of America.