Editor’s note: This commentary is by Meg Mott, who is a professor of politics at Marlboro College and the town moderator in Putney.
[O]f the many contentious issues in Vermont, gun regulation is visibly the most divisive. Lawmakers provided separate entrances at last week’s hearing on proposed gun regulations, with signs channeling each side to its designated portal. Even without the traffic signals, the division was marked by team colors. Opponents of the bills arrived wearing blaze orange clothing, the regulation gear of safety-conscious hunters. Proponents wore purple, a color aligned with the campaign to end domestic violence. Everyone — lawmakers, proponents and opponents – acted as if the two sides could not mix.
The legislation that brought Team Orange and Team Purple to the Statehouse had several moving parts. S.6 would require universal background checks on gun sales. S.221 would give law enforcement greater authority to take guns away from violent individuals, particularly during domestic disputes. A version of S.221 already passed the House.
While both sides act as if they have nothing in common, in fact there are some shared concerns. Both groups are concerned about the volatility of domestic disputes. Team Purple wants to give more authority to the police. They say it makes sense to for officers to remove guns from a home with an abusive individual. By contrast, Team Orange recommends that more women learn to use guns. They are also suspicious of restraining orders, many of which are dropped by the time the order is tested in court.
These two approaches to ending domestic violence reflect widely different attitudes towards government. Team Purple assumes that law enforcement can effectively manage interpersonal violence. In a domestic situation, the police should have the most arms, not the citizens. Team Orange believes that tyranny comes when the population surrenders its weapons. If you take away our gun rights, they argue, we’ll quickly lose the rest of our civil rights. Opponents of gun regulation do not trust the state. Proponents of gun regulation do, at least when the issue is gun safety.
Poverty gives people reasons not to trust the state. Fighting a restraining order, a custody decree, an arrest, an expulsion from school, a condition of release is much more difficult when you don’t have extra resources. By contrast, people with substantial assets believe the state will help them protect their property. If they call the police, they assume they will be believed, particularly if they are white. They don’t need to arm themselves when the arms of the state are on their side.
The proposed legislation doesn’t address this underlying class divide. Indeed, given the separate entrances and the clashing colors, one could say that it is making it worse. The stage directions made it seem as if there was no common ground. That said, the fact that Team Orange and Team Purple were forced into close proximity means that common ground can be achieved. Any time a group of human beings is forced to use the same microphone, to speak to the same audience, to use the same cafeteria, to travel the same hallways, the possibility for common action comes into view. This is particularly true in a constitutional democracy where we all rely on the same constitution to negotiate our disputes.
As any lawyer will tell you, the law is always open to interpretation. That is particularly true of the Second Amendment with its passive voice and dangling prefatory clause. The two teams that showed up in Montpelier last week represent two different interpretations: one reads in favor of state government; the other reads in favor of individual rights. The former gives greater authority to the preface: “A well-regulated militia.” The latter gives greater authority to “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Your relationship to government determines the door you’ll chose.
Unfortunately for Team Purple, not long after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 the federal government started interpreting the Second Amendment as an individual right. In a memo dated Nov. 1, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ruled in a federal case that the right to bear arms extends beyond military service. The state could restrict gun sales to felons and the mentally ill, but not to the general population. Two years later, that doctrine was applied to the states. What this means is that the court will not allow states to disarm their people unless they can prove criminality or mental instability.
S.221 requires a judge’s order before any weapons can be confiscated from a violent individual. For Team Purple, judicial oversight should protect a person’s constitutional rights. For Team Orange, judges are as subjective as anyone else. If someone is accused of being violent, how can they defend themselves? Once again, the issue is trust in government. Team Purple trusts government more than citizens. Team Orange trusts citizens more than government.
Last summer, as part of a series on the Bill of Rights at the Putney Town Library, Team Orange showed up without their colors to defend the Second Amendment. Friends of Team Purple settled uneasily next to them. Together we looked at the grammar of the Second Amendment, James Madison’s reasoning in support of the Second Amendment, and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. Together we considered the motives behind the divergent interpretations. At times, tempers were lost and denouncements were made. Members of both sides succumbed to the temptation of eye-rolling and head-shaking. But by the end of the evening, Team Orange was shaking hands with allies of Team Purple.
Through rigorous debate on a singular issue, each side gained a better understanding of their opponent’s motives and experiences. That isn’t to say that people converted to the other side, but that they came to understand the limits of their own thinking. In a democracy, that may be as good as it gets.
