Amid the recent tragedy of the massive school shooting in Parkland, Florida, I’ve heard people calling for the repeal of the 2nd amendment. Their hearts are in the right place since many innocent people have been hurt or killed by gun violence. However, I believe repealing the right to own a gun would not achieve the result intended and would create even more problems for society. Since we have gone down this road before with the prohibition of alcohol, let’s look at what happened then to see what might happen if guns were banned.

I read the book “Last Call” by Daniel Okrent to find out what happened during alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s and 30’s. The Reverend Billy Sunday, one of the leading proponents of prohibition, preached of wonderful times ahead after banning alcohol. Well, things didn’t turn out that way. First of all, it was a long, hard process to approve the 18th amendment that banned alcohol in the U.S. First, the amendment had to be approved by 2/3 of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Then 3/4 of the State legislatures had to say yes. This process took around a year. Then legislation had to be written, in this case the Volstead Act, to enforce the new law. The same process would apply to repealing the 2nd Amendment.

The Volstead Act delayed the enactment of the 18th amendment for another year. This means that citizens had two years to stockpile liquor before the law went into affect which was great for drinkers because the act also allowed people to consume the alcohol they already possessed in their homes before the ban started. Some of the wealthy even bought out the stock of liquor stores so that they would have plenty of their favorite bubbly for years to come. If the 2nd Amendment were repealed, would gun owners be able to keep guns that they already owned beforehand? Per the website Bearing Arms, there are between 300 to 600 million guns that are currently owned by law-abiding U.S. citizens. This does not include guns that criminals possess. Leaving these guns alone would essentially nullify the repeal. Would they ask people to voluntarily give up their guns? Maybe people who followed the law would give up their guns, but most of the criminals, who don’t follow or care about the law by definition, would not. How about forcible gun confiscation if people refused to give up their guns?

Actually, the American Revolution began due to a conflict over gun confiscation. The battles at Lexington and Concord, MS started because the British government ordered its troops to march to Concord,search for, and forcefully take a weapons cache that the Colonists had stored. These guns and powder were not being used to attack anyone. They were holding them for self-defense. The Founders of our country probably had this in mind when they wrote the 2nd amendment as well as the 4th which protects citizens against a Federal Government search and seizure of their property without a warrant. Warrants couldn’t be issued unless the Judge had a way of knowing that a person’s home had an illegal gun. Since there is no Federal gun registry, this would be impossible. Therefore, confiscation would be unconstitutional.

The Volstead act included other exemptions besides previously owned alcohol. Ministers and Rabbis were allowed to have wine for sacramental purposes, and doctors were allowed to prescribe alcohol for “Medicinal” purposes. Of course doctors took advantage of this loop hole by selling prescriptions to “patients” who used the liquor for recreational purposes instead of medical needs. There were instances of men who posed as Rabbis to get a permit for wine to serve to their “congregations”. These men were just fakes supplying their friends and family with drink. Real ministers would sell some of their extra sacraments to their congregation and others on the side. Farmers were allowed to keep fruit until it fermented to make hard cider for “family use”. There would often be extra to sell to others.

The legal purchase of wine grapes increased greatly during prohibition. So did the purchase of Malt Syrup. Anheuser Busch sold 6 million pounds of it a year. All people had to do was add water, yeast, and other ingredients that were perfectly legal to buy, and before long, they would have wine or beer. Would there be exemptions and loop holes to the ban of selling or owning guns? Check out part two of my blog next week.