Triggering Debate

Debaters interpret Second Amendment rights

Ascending the Grafton-Stovall stage, debate teams from Mary Washington College and JMU celebrated Madison Week by arguing the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, Wednesday afternoon.

During the event, MWC sophomore Katie Leeson and junior Jennifer Rainey and JMU juniors Cate Morrison and Michelle Lancaster debated the following statement: Resolved: that restrictions on the sale and ownership of firearms are an unwelcome infringement of Americans' Second Amendment liberties.

MWC argued the affirmative and JMU argued the negative. The debate was formatted with four alternating affirmative and negative speeches with each speech being followed by questions from the opposing team. The audience asked questions before each team made its closing remarks.

Safeguarding rights

"The Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, was designed to safeguard our right to be able to protect us as individuals," Leeson said.

"According to Charlton Heston, of the National Rifle Association, we are once again engaged in a civil war," she said. "This time a cultural war that is about to hijack you your right out of your own birth right."

During Leeson's presentation, she continued to make the point that limiting the Second Amendment would create a waterfall effect, opening the floodgates to infringe on other civil liberties.

"What do we risk neglecting the true meaning of the Second Amendment? We risk a lot," she said.
"First, what is to stop more freedoms to slip from our grasp," she said.

James Madison would be on Mary Washington's side, according to Leeson.

After invoking the name of James Madison, Leeson quoted him when she said, "… as he wrote, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

In other words, the right to have guns should not be taken away.

"Take away one right and weaken one civil liberty and the consequences are devastating," she said.
There were two more risks that Leeson highlighted during her speech: losing the right to self-defense, and that taking away gun rights won't cut down crime, according to Leeson.

Reasonable limits

The thesis of Morrison's speech was closing the gun show loophole.

"Charlton Heston is not my president," Morrison said. "If indeed the Second Amendment provides an absolute constitutional protection for the right to bear arms in order to preserve the power of the people to resist government tyranny, but then it must allow individuals to posses bazookas, torpedoes, SCUD missiles, even nuclear weapons. For they, like hand guns, are arms."

Morrison then connected this to the idea of limits on constitutional amendments.

"As soon as we allow for government regulation of any weapon, we have broken the dam of constitutional protection," she said.

"Once that dam is broken we are not talking about whether the government can constitutionally restrict arms but rather what constitutes a reasonable restriction,"Morrison said.

This idea tied into an even broader concept.

"Constitutional amendments are not absolute," she said. "They were never meant to be. If they were, we wouldn't need an entire branch of the government to interpret them. Like the First Amendment, which does not stretch far enough to cover libel or yelling 'fire'in a crowded theater, the Second Amendment should not stretch far enough to cover the rights of criminals to buy guns.

"We are not here to strip away an amendment to the Constitution; we are not here to take away the rights of hunters or even the rights of law-abiding citizens to own their own hand guns for protection," Morrison said.

"We are here to instead argue for security from those who would twist the constitution to gain access to arms and then to harm others," she said.

Everyday fire arms are illegally sold to convicted criminals and the mentally ill because of the gun show loophole, according to Morrison.

The loophole is the ability of those people who don't get their main income from selling guns to be able to sell guns at gun shows without being required to do a background check, according to Morrison.

Closing the gunshow loophole is perfectly constitutional and necessary, according to Morrison.

Morrison continued with the theme of reasonable restrictions on gun control.

She said, "It has to do with what ... David Koresh and the Columbine massacre all have in common. They are all intimately intertwined with some of the darkest moments in our history — moments that were created by the gun show loophole. Or worse, moments that yet have been created but are on the horizon."

Gun shows and the loophole were utilized, according to Morrison, in the aforementioned events and among others.

She then went on to suggest mandating background checks for all gun purchases.

Rights stolen

The debate shouldn't be about a loophole or dark moments in history but about theft, according to Rainey.

"Theft, because the most basic of civil liberties is being stolen from American citizens," she said. "Theft, because the opposition wants to take billions of your hard-earned tax dollars to enact useless legislation."

She then attacked the foundation of the opposition's argument when she said, "This attack on gun shows is a cleverly hidden attempt to erode our civil rights," she said. "With this erosion we begin to slide down the slippery slope of unconstitutionality."

She then invoked the name of a founding father when she said, "As George Mason once said, 'To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.'"

In her speech, she also conveyed the message that closing the gun show loophole would do nothing.

Lives stolen

Lancaster focused on a different kind of theft during her speech.

"Oddly enough, our opponents and I agree," she said. "This debate is very much about theft; however, it is about the theft of life. It is the theft of every child that has access to a gun that accidentally shoots them- self. It is about the theft of every single life that happens when the gun show loophole is not closed and convicted felons are legally able to purchase a weapon in which they can kill again. That is the theft we should be concerned about."

Audience reaction

About 50 students attended the debate.

"I thought the debaters argued their positions really well, considering gun control is such a controversial issue," senior Shari Acree said.

"The question-and-answer period was a nice feature of the debate because it allowed the audience members to discuss the points made in the debate instead of just listening to the arguments," Acree said.

Debate context

Co-chair of the Madison Committee and director of the Identity Leadership Team Andy Perrine and Pete Bsumel gave opening remarks.

This is the second time debate over an amendment has occurred as part of the Madison Week celebration.

This year for the first time the debate was Web casted live and is now archived and available on the Madison Week Web page, www.jmu.edu/birthday.