Armed To Save Lives
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

‘Repeal the Second Amendment,” the Chicago Tribune editorialized.
“The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die,” the New York Times said.
“[T]he Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms only in relation to service in a state militia,” added the Washington Post.
Those are a few of many editorial expressions of disgust from the mainstream press over the Supreme Court’s ruling that when the Bill of Rights says that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” it includes the right to possess guns for self-defense, and not merely a right to be armed as a member of the National Guard.
What has caused so much confusion about the Amendment is its preface: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state … “
In striking down Washington, D.C.’s three-decade-old handgun ban, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the preface merely “announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia” by the new national government. “The prefatory clause,” he continued, “does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting.”
But for the four dissenters, the preface limits the right to keep and bear arms to military purposes. In their view, if the Framers of the Second Amendment wanted private individuals to have guns for hunting and self-defense, they would have said so.
Justice John Paul Stevens points to “the Second Amendment’s omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense.”
I suppose one could argue that the omission indicates the Framers of the Constitution didn’t mean to protect that right. But I find that hard to believe. The right of self-defense — against homegrown tyrants as well as common criminals — was much on the minds of Americans in the late 18th century. Justice Scalia notes that “During the 1788 [constitutional] ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive.”
George Mason, for example, acknowledged father of the Bill of Rights, wrote: “To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
And Thomas Jefferson: “[W]hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
But there is something else that many analysts of the decision have missed.
The Bill of Rights did not create rights. It acknowledged them. Right before the July 4 holiday, it shouldn’t have been necessary to remind the four Supreme Court dissenters of what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. … “
For Jefferson and his colleagues, first, there were individuals with rights, then there was government to protect them. The Framers of the Second Amendment did not say, “The people shall have the right to keep and bear arms.” They wrote, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
This isn’t just theory. Lives are at stake. The Cato Institute’s Tom Palmer, an early plaintiff in the D.C. gun case, told “20/20” he is alive today because his mother gave him a handgun, and he had it with him when he was approached on the street by some toughs. “I was threatened with death, walking with a colleague down a street in a neighborhood where we evidently weren’t welcome. They told us, ‘We’re going to kill you. They’ll never find the bodies.’ I turned around and showed them the business end of a pistol.
“I just said, ‘You just walk backwards to the other side of the street. If you come closer, I will shoot you.’ They turned around, went away.”
The four dissenting justices fear the Supreme Court’s decision will unleash a flood of gun violence. Unlikely. “Criminals do not have a problem getting guns.” Mr. Palmer reminded me. They are not deterred by gun control. It’s law-abiding people who wish to protect themselves and their families who suffer when guns are banned.
The victims of gun crimes are easy to count. What cannot be counted are the lives saved because would-be victims were armed. Mr. Palmer’s confrontation is one of many that didn’t make the news.
He asks, “If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they’ll get there and they’ll make a crime report and take a picture of your dead body.
They can’t get there in time to save your life.”
Mr. Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News’ “20/20” and the author of “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.” © 2008 JFS Productions, Inc.