After Orlando, Let's Require Gun Owners To Join The National Guard

Politicos and activists are appropriating the ghastly Orlando Massacre for political and policy purposes. It would be better if we could pause and mourn the victims before engaging in a policy debate. But if we are to have a policy debate, the debate we need to have is about how to drastically reduce gun violence without disarming law-abiding people.

There are ways to make us all safer without eroding the Bill of Rights. To do so we simply must end the “Mexican standoff” between gun control and gun rights advocates.

Ending the deadlock between gun control and gun rights holds the way to vastly reduce gun violence without infringing upon the rights of law abiding gun owners. Full disclosure: while a gun owner I am not a gun nut.

I’m a Constitution nut. A solution lies hidden in plain sight right in the Second Amendment: “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.”

The militias now, by and large, are subsumed into the National Guard. The Guard is a very well-regulated militia indeed.

Without doing any violence to the letter or spirit of the Constitution, it is entirely possible to make gun ownership contingent upon membership in the Guard or other legally recognized state militia. If done in full good faith — with NRA officials given seats at the table — this will appeal to the right (which has high respect for our military and for service) and will be at least palatable to the fair-minded left.