Today is Constitution Day. Folks at Penn State are reflecting on the space between the First and Second Amendments today. We are also holding a vigil for the 20th anniversary of the HUB shooting.
This past spring I began serving my four-year term as a supervisor in Ferguson Township. We are the five-person legislative body that deliberates on township governmental matters. While most affairs proceed calmly, we have heated issues too. Our decisions and ordinances aren’t distant in D.C. They are direct. Tempers flare. People insult one another about kids’ soccer, or water, or about land use. This discord can make speech a lot less comfortable and decision-making more difficult. But it cannot silence or destroy our deliberation. The presence or mere suspicion–what some might think of as a threat–of a gun can. It did for me. I submit that the abuse of the Second Amendment threatens our exercise of the First. Here’s why.
Our township meetings are necessarily public to maximize transparency. In the interest of sound decision-making, we speak our minds and listen to presentations from both specialized experts and workaday citizens. We are assembled to listen and deliberate on the matters before us.
I’ve already had the unfortunate experience of wondering whether a citizen was carrying a concealed weapon into meetings. A citizen came to a series of meetings to allege that his fourth amendment rights had been violated when, property–including guns–were seized by the police. I learned between the course of these meetings that he had been convicted of a felony and had lost his right to carry a firearm. He was also upset about a sign telling citizens they couldn’t bring firearms into the Township meeting. As he spoke, my fellow supervisors and I believed that he became agitated. We were worried that he had a gun.
Each of the nights that he spoke, he remained in the audience as we deliberated. I watched him. I wondered to myself, Am I going to have to grab my fellow supervisors and run? A woman I know well was in attendance with her five-year-old son. As he spoke I thought, Am I going to have to tackle him so they can escape? Will I die doing that? These are not the thoughts of someone who can deliberate well. These are the thoughts of a stressed person narrowing their decisions because they can’t attend to all of the details. And they are not the thoughts of someone who is safe. These are the thoughts of someone under threat.
I am charged with carrying out transparent deliberation. The freedom of assembly and speech and the duty of assembly musn’t be threatened by the tyranny of Second Amendment fundamentalism. The right to bear arms must never encroach on the function of a representative republic.
[NOTE: As of October 2020, I have talked with the gentlemen. It was constructive and perspective-building but we remain unresolved on some matters. I certainly wish him well.]
Peter Walks for Democracy 