I write as a Brit, living in a country where gun ownership is strictly controlled, and handguns are completely illegal. Even our police officers are unarmed, except under special circumstances. Yes, we have gun crime, but on nothing like the scale of that of countries with a more liberal regime in terms of gun ownership.

Looking across the Pond, I see a country that claims to have gun ownership embedded as a Constitutional right. However, I find it hard to understand how this is the case. The Second Amendment to the Constitunion 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.

Laws are always open to interpretation, and it is the business of the courts to adjudge cases based on the facts in front of them. There are therefore two ways in which a body of laws is built--from legislation and from case law. Where the laws covering gun ownership are concerned, the US courts have made all sorts of what are, in effect, amendments to the Amendment. Thus what counts as lawful ownership of a gun may be very different from the intentions of the men who orignally drafted the Second Amendment, back in 1789.

However, on looking at the precise wording of the Amendment, several things hit me between the eyes.

Is it true today?

Firstly, this is the only Amendment that includes a reason for its existence. It is like a statement in logic--because A is the case, then B follows. Therefore, if A is not the case, then B does not follow either.

I would like to know how it can possibly be true that the security of Rhode Island, or California, or Alaska, is dependent on the existence of a body of men who are willing to be called from the fields or the factories to grab their rifles and march to the border to defend their families and homes against a foreign invader? I can understand that this was the case in 1789, in the same year that the French Revoution started, when the fledgling Union was by no means secure and individual states faced native uprisings, but in 2008?

The modern state relies for its security on a professional police force, federal agencies, and a full-time army, navy and air force, backed by a huge array of technology including secure telecommunications and satellite surveillance.

It can be argued that part-time militias are a useful backup to the professional forces, and a source of recruitment in times of emergency, but necessary to the security of the modern State? Surely not!

How well regulated is your Militia?

The strong implication of the Amendment is that your right to bear arms is dependent on your willingness to be a member of your State militia. If this were not the case, why would that clause be there? If you are not willing to be a minute-man (or woman) you do not have the right to bear arms.

Also, you cannot get away with saying that every American citizien is deemed to be a member of a militia by virtue of their citizenship, and that having a gun to protect yourself against criminal attack is justified because of your assumed membership.

The words are "a well regulated militia", which means that the members of it are controlled in some way, and trained in their duties. It is not just "regulated" but "well regulated"--when did you last go to the parade ground and march up and down?

Also, you cannot claim to be your own Militia, acting alone. The word implies a body of people acting under orders for a specific purpose.

Time for a Change?

In other words, what the Second Amendment is actually saying is not that Mr or Ms America has a Constitutional right to bear arms, but precisely the opposite--you do not! Is it not high time that all the doubts and arguments were cleared away, so that the world's most advanced country did not tie itself in knots with laws that were written for a long bygone age? If you want the right to bear arms, then say so in terms that make sense in 2008, with all the safeguards and conditions that are appropriate for today.

The problem with having a written Constitution is that it is notoriously difficult to change. We don't have this problem in the UK because our Constitution is the body of the laws that governs us, and elements of that body of laws can be changed by Parliament at any time.

About twenty years ago, we had a grand clearance sale of old laws in the UK, and threw out a whole load of stuff that was way out of date. It is no longer illegal to eat Christmas pudding, for example, which was indeed the case not so long ago! Can the United States do something similar and draft a new amendment that addresses today's situation in a more realistic fashion?