The House of Representatives is not usually associated with civil disobedience. But Democratic House members have decided that civil disobedience may be the only way to force their chamber to act on the issue of gun violence.
Democrats have engaged in a day-long sit-in on the House floor, which started at about noon on Wednesday, demanding votes on two gun measures opposed by Republican Congressmen and the National Rifle Association.
As The Huffington Post reported, Democratic
efforts to achieve this goal continued throughout the night, even after the Republican lawmakers snuck into the chamber at 2:30 a.m. and voted to adjourn the session until Jul. 5.
It was an incredible scene. Throughout the day, Democrats clogged the House floor, holding the printed names of gun victims over their heads and loudly chanting “No Bill, No Break.” Democrats were protesting the Republicans’ refusal to take up the so-called No Fly, No Buy legislation, which would bar people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gaveled the House back into session, nearly 11 hours after the Democratic sit-in began. He read a prepared script to set up a procedural vote, as if the House was in order and that Democrats weren’t breaking rules.
When Ryan stepped down from the podium, Democrats chanted “Shame!”
It is an unprecedented move — Rachel Maddow said repeatedly last night that there had never been a sit-in in the House in its history — that has the potential to shift debate in a more sane direction on guns.
The specific legislation in play here — banning people on the no-fly list from gaining access to weapons — is popular with the American public, but badly conceived and problematic from a civil liberties standpoint. The no-fly list lacks transparency and invest far too much authority in the hands of the executive branch — almost anyone can be placed on the list without being told and those who end up designated as potential threats have little recourse. If I were in Congress, I’d vote against the “No Fly, No Buy” legislation on civil liberties grounds.
But this sit-in is about more than this bill — or it needs to be. As we saw earlier this week when four gun-reform bills were defeated, the gun issue is not taken seriously by the legislative branch. Republicans, for the most part, equate any discussion of gun regulations with confiscation, an argument that fails the simplest tests of logic, and one that is inconsistent with the way we treat other constitutional rights.
The First Amendment is subjected to a variety of regulatory schemes, including limits on commercial speech and the kind of speech that can be broadcast over the public airwaves, restrictions on where houses of worship might be constructed, and the like. Restrictions on speech and religious practice must meet a higher bar than other limits, but the courts have consistently ruled that the public good can trump individual rights in narrow circumstances.
The same approach is needed when dealing with guns. There are a host of potential regulations we can put in place that would improve public safety without infringing on the ultimate rights of gun owners. None are perfect — anyone who thinks we can eliminate gun violence completely is fooling themselves, just as anyone who thinks that gun-control measures will do nothing is either lying or deluding themselves. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
First, we not treat access to guns the same way we treat driving privileges? We can requiring background checks, safety training and testing, and liability insurance for anyone who wants to own a gun. Remember, we do not hand a gun to a cop and say have at it. We require officers and soldiers to be certified, to practice and pass tests, before we entrust them with their weapons.
Second, we should acknowledge that we have the right to draw some lines when it comes to what weapons should be available to the general public. It is not an issue of whether the line should be drawn, but where. We already do this — RPGs, machine guns and bazookas are heavily regulated (the NRA opposes these regulations), explosive devices are banned, and so on. We have the ability to determine where the line should be placed, balancing the public good against the right of the individual — which is the same standard we apply to the First Amendment.
The NRA might argue that the Second Amendment is different — it calls gun ownership, absurdly, our “first freedom.” At best it is our sixth, given that it is placed in the Bill of Rights behind the five freedoms outlined in the First Amendment.
But there is no rational reason to treat these rights differently — but this is a digression. My point, ultimately, is that we need to have these discussions, that debates and votes are necessary, that they are an integral component of how our system of government is supposed to function. If the sit-in reminds us that so-called gun rights are not exempt from the legislative process, then the sit-in will have been a success.
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