DN Editorial: Undisciplined

ANOTHER mass shooting, another violation of the Second Amendment rights of the murder victims.

Each of the 12 victims killed Monday at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard had a constitutional right to freedom from an undisciplined (we use the word advisedly) individual who had no business carrying a gun, certainly no business owning one.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms for the purpose of maintaining a well-regulated militia - the latter entity surely being out of bounds for trigger-happy Aaron Alexis, who had a well-documented history of irresponsible gun use, and yet took a newly purchased shotgun into the D.C. Navy Yard and willfully slaughtered a dozen people.

Alexis had been arrested in 2008 for firing a bullet into the home of a neighbor - an incident that should have immediately negated his right to bear arms.

Of course, he never should have had the opportunity to fire a shot at his neighbor's apartment (even in Texas), because in 2004 he shot out the tires of a vehicle owned by guys he didn't like. That alone should have disqualified him from a spot in anybody's well-regulated militia - even the fife and drum corps.

So say the framers, who stipulated that personal "discipline" be a determining factor in gun rights. That was a principle affirmed by the Supreme Court as recently as 2008, using the same language: discipline.

Alexis was as undisciplined a gun owner as you'd care to encounter. Ditto movie-massacre maniac James Holmes.

Might this behavior not have been of interest to local law enforcement? And this is key: Gun activists fear the intrusion of the federal government, but discipline is something that could be easily enforced by sensible local law enforcement.

Consider the case of George Zimmerman. In 2005, long before he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, his former fiancee had sought and won a restraining order against him.

Yet, the state saw fit to allow Zimmerman a concealed-carry permit. What kind of state grants a concealed-carry permit to a man it also has slapped with a restraining order? Florida, for one. But there are 20 others. Had he not had a carry permit, he would not have been following Martin with a gun, and the boy would be alive.

This is not a call to round up guns and ammo. You want an arsenal, you want a pistol grip on your rifle, you want to fill your tub with .223 rounds and roll naked in them? Be our guest.

But think for a minute what might be accomplished with sensible, local law enforcement. The case of Alexis should stand as an example and a warning. A man firing a gun into his neighbor's apartment or at another citizen's truck is not a nuisance. These incidents need to prosecuted. And there needs to be consequences. Alexis was an undisciplined gun owner whose gun rights should have been permanently revoked. State and local law enforcement need to step it up.

Not in spite of the Second Amendment, but because of it.