Tommy Denton

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The day before the horrific events at Virginia Tech, my column of April 15 contained a proposal to consider a constitutional remedy for gun violence: repeal of the Second Amendment.

The idea certainly was not original, although over the years I have suggested variations on the theme of testing the constitutional absolutes about keeping and bearing arms in civil society. The most specific proposal I can recall of an actual use of the Constitution's Article 5 to amend the nation's foundational law appeared in Benjamin Wittes' essay in the April 2 issue of The New Republic.

(https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20070402&s=wittes040207

After the shootings at Virginia Tech, Walter Shapiro followed the same line of reasoning in an essay appearing last Wednesday at Salon.com.

(www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/04/18/second_amendment/index.html)

Both are far more erudite and logically compelling than my feeble scribblings, and they provide excellent examples of the proud tradition in an open, liberal democracy of exercising the right of formal and informal debate.

Reasoned arguments contribute to the great community conversation about our shared destiny. I expect Wittes and Shapiro, as I did, may have heard from correspondents who disagreed with their conclusions and even with their premises.

If those replies shared much in common with most that I have received, there is much to be said for renewed emphasis not only on the teaching of history in American schools but also imposing a crash course in remedial logic.

A seminar on courtesy and civil deportment wouldn't hurt, either.

Family newspaper-appropriate examples from my e-mail bag, corrected for spelling and punctuation:

n "Well thank you, sir, for not showing even the remotest bit of shame at making sure that everyone knows you are a blathering idiot.... I find it amazing that someone, some absolute fool thinks you should get a paycheck for such drivel as you've written when it's obvious you aren't smart enough even to be pushing a broom or cleaning toilets at The Roanoke Times."

n "You are clearly a leftist who hates the United States and what she stands for. You do not believe in liberty or personal responsibility.... Morons like you can't read; the campus has a rule saying guns are not allowed on campus. Your law will make sure no one anywhere will be allowed to defend themselves. Just because you like bending over for your assailants doesn't mean everyone shares your willingness to be subjugated by force. Well, that is what you are advocating. You are an ignorant idiot."

n Among the more dispassionate: "From your writing you seem to believe that someone else is responsible for your safety. I disagree, and the Supreme Court has upheld the ruling that the police do not have any responsibility to protect you individually, just 'the public in general.' Since the government by judicial ruling refuses to take responsibility for your safety, who is responsible for your safety?"

n And, of course, the proverbial "from my cold, dead fingers...."

Some correspondence merited reply, although the gratuitous insults did not, other than a courtesy note of thanks for exercising free expression. Many pulsed with an undercurrent of anger, intimidation and a latent tone of raw menace, however, characterizing the most zealous advocates of the Second Amendment.

Such hardened positions, impermeable to reason or even question, should elicit serious reflection in an open society. It tells us a lot about the understanding of, and commitment to, liberal democracy, a philosophy that emerged from the Renaissance, began to flower in the intellectual fecundity of the Enlightenment and is still evolving.

Societies form for the mutual protection of their members. It's been happening, with modest improvement, through the millennia, and ours has evolved as an imperfectly progressive vanguard of the republican ideal in the world.

Menacing postures in the public debates may suggest a withering of confidence in America's civil institutions. That would be a shame, because broad citizen surrender to apathy or irrational fear is one of the clearest, most present dangers to any republic, dependent as it is on public trust.

Those who conjure phantoms of storm troopers behind every tree or shadowy door, and who resort to the primordial reactions of anger and thinly veiled threats rather than engaging in reasoned argument, betray the democratic experiment.

Denton's column appears in the Sunday and Tuesday editions of The Roanoke Times.