America’s delusional understanding of a Constitutional provision has come home to roost once again after a Texas gunman opened fire with an assault rifle on his neighbours and killed five of them, including an eight-year-old child, over the weekend. The provocation, if it may be called that, was minor; the neighbours had asked the suspect to not fire a weapon in his yard because the noise was disturbing an infant they were trying to put to sleep.

The suspect claimed he could do what he wished on his property, but shortly after decided he had been affronted sufficiently to walk next door and open indiscriminate fire. The man, who was said to be intoxicated, then fled into the nearby woods. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution says “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” While there may have been a historical context to this requirement, when the loose federation of states that constituted America was chary of regional rights being targeted, there is no earthly reason today why a self-proclaimed civilized country should feel either the need to deploy a militia, or indeed to allow such a group or its members to bear arms. It is widely understood that the context in which the law was written was one where the intention was to provide a counterbalance to the coercive power of the state.

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America today claims to be a modern state, with a regular Army, a National Guard formed specifically to deal with situations that may have necessitated an armed militia, and law enforcement officers who carry arms. But the powerful gun lobby in the country, fixated on the phrase “shall not be infringed” in the Second Amendment, has successfully resisted all efforts at gun control. Even though some states have sought to bring in regulations to ensure a measure of control – some, for instance, allow the possession of arms for defense of home, person and property or in the aid of civil power when legally summoned – these fall far short of the ideal, which ought to be that disputes or grievances, real or imaginary, must be settled through due process of law. Friday’s killings in Texas came less than a year after a mass shooting left 19 dead in a school of the same state.

According to one estimate, it was the 174th mass shooting and the 17th mass killing in the country in 2023, a shocking statistic when one considers that we are only a third into the year. Nearly 50,000 people died of bullet injuries in the country in 2021, and more than 40,000 last year. After the shocking incident at a Texas school last year, President Joe Biden had asked “For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough is enough?” The answers to these questions are clear; a country that continues to see relevance in a 1791 law that has long outlived its utility is destined to perish at its own hands.