First Monday and the Second

April 28, 2002

by Charles E. Perry

There’s a TV show on CBS called First Monday. The show is about the Supreme Court, and they tackle a different constitutional issue every week. I just finished watching an episode about the Second Amendment, and I had to restrain myself from shouting things at the screen. They got a few things wrong, and I’d like to help the writers of the show out by correcting them.

They had Alan Dershowitz appear as a constitutional expert, and they had him saying the line, "The second amendment grants ..." Why Dershowitz agreed to say it, I don’t know, because they couldn’t be more wrong. None of the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, grants rights at all, they protect rights we already have, which predated the Constitution. The Supreme Court has said so, and Dershowitz should know that. The problem is that rights the government graciously "grants" us can be taken away, and the whole idea of the Bill of Rights was to see that these rights, considered fundamental to a free society, simply could not be taken away, no way, no how.

The show had one of the lawyers arguing before the court say that the militia was now the National Guard. That’s wrong, too. The Guard is a component of the militia, but it is not the sum total thereof. Federal law names all males age 17 to 45 as members of the militia, and has since the first militia law Congress passed. Furthermore, the Supreme Court in Presser v. Illinois noted: "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserve militia or reserve military force of the United States and of the States ..." The court went on to say that the States couldn’t disarm the people because of this. A case can be made, and has been by some scholars, that the militia is, in fact, the people. I won’t go into all the arguments here, but I may in a future column.

The show was amazingly balanced, coming from Hollywood liberals. That means that they at least made a stab at presenting both sides of the issue, and I congratulate them for that. But if they want to take on issues like this, it behooves them to be certain of their facts and not to make mistakes. Sad to say, many Americans have no real idea what the Constitution does or does not say, and they’re going to believe what they see on a TV show about it without bothering to check. The show has a duty, then, to get it right.

One other thing I have to take issue with: one of the lawyers arguing before the court said that "more than 30,000 Americans per year" are killed with a gun. That figure is just plain wrong. The figure has been below 30,000 for a number of years, and has been dropping while the rate of gun ownership has been rising. Further, the figure includes all deaths by gun, including suicides and justifiable homicides. Suicide rates simply do not go down when guns are banned, people just find other methods. And as for justifiable homicides, should we really be upset if a criminal intent on murdering someone gets shot?

So, to the producers of First Monday, I’ll give you a B+. Try to do beter next time. I know you can.

_________________________________________

Charles E. Perry is a freelance writer living in Michigan. He has done a variety of things in his life, including Ward Supervisor at the State of Michigan's Maximum Security Mental Facility. His degree is in accounting, but he discovered writing and now spends his time hunched over a keyboard, hollow-eyed, looking for just the right word. Perry is the author of "How Government Should Work: A Look at the Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States," currently pending publication.

Send the author an E mail at Perry@ConservativeTruth.org.

For more of Charlie's articles, visit his archives.