4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 22, 1999 E £irbiganr aig Episode III: Relativism? A Jedi craves not these things 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 daily. letters@umich.edu Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan HEATHER KAMINS Editor in Chief JEFFREY KOSSEFF DAVID WALLACE Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Dailys editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Rijt to bear arms? Second Amendment must be reinterpreted ELveryone will have an opinion about this column. Share it. What if I told you that an absolute moral law existed? I'm not saying that one thing or another is absolutely right or wrong. Again, I'm not talking about abortion or lying or any one human behavior. I'm saying that absolutely everyone knows Right from Wrong. Yep, you know Right ! from Wrong and you "' know that you're supposed to do the right thing. This may sound a lot like reli- Mike gion, but you know Lopez what? This has . absolutely nothing to do with religion. The absolute moral law is grounded in our own evolution. Before you proclaim my Godlessness, let me say that I myself believe in the existence of the Almighty. I have a Christian world wiew. Even though my faith is strong, I emphasize that what I say has no bearing on God or religion. Science can neither confirm nor deny Faith. Regardless of the first cause of any natural phenomenon, science can only describe hoxw it de elops within the world. Do you haxe a conscience? A con- science is that feeling inside you that tells you to do the moral, or right, thing. Where did it come from? The popular answer is parents, teachers, books, movies, TV, and "society." Even if that is true, from where did society get morali- ty? Well. I'd say that morality came from our common evolutionary ancestry. Then how come every society has a different morality? They are not really that differ- ent. The differences between cultures' moralities are like differences in skin color. Look under the surface and we're all the same. The core message of every moral teaching is the same. What is this core message? Read on. What is the purpose of life? The pur- pose of life is to survive. Not for an indi- vidual to survive, but for an entire gene pool to survive. Why do amoebas divide? The genes are programmed to do so. What else does life do? In a universe where everything moves towards disorder, life moves towards order. You have to agree with this. From the very beginning, the mechanisms of life have made order out of chaos. Life turns gases, liquids, miner- als and vitamins into thinking beings. Deep down in our genes, we have a tendency towards order and a will to sur- vive. What is morality:? Is it not a way to order the world so that everyone sur- vives? That is the core message. Let us assume that there is an absolute moral law that transcends cultural lines. What would happen if everyone in the world followed this law? Everyone would exist in perfect order and everyone would surN ive. There would be no such thing as famine, murder, ex il or sin. Everyone would be good. We would not only be totally moral, but everyone would be happy to choose the high road. Just imagine if everyone followed all the traffic laws. At first, you might think, "Oh no, I can't speed." This is silly though because if you took the absolute moral law to heart you wouldn't want To speed. You see, follow ing the absolute moral law means that the world no longer needs laws. Why are external laws needed if everyone always does what is right? Could you imagine every person in the world having an inner voice telling him or her Right from Wrong all the time? I can imagine it because the whole world does have that voice. The only problem with us right now is that a lot of people don't listen to it and the voice is not entirely uniform through- out all cultures. As evolving beings, we haven't quite consciously hit upon the absolute moral law that has slowly been written into our genes since the beginning of life itself. In this perfect world, we will have hit upon it. Life is constantly mowing towards greater order. If we are constantly evolv- ing, then we must be evolving towards this perfect world. If we are evolving towards this perfect world, then there must be an absolute moral law. We may not know it consciously, but it does exist If the law exists and we are evolving towards its adoption, then we are all called to seek and find the law and embrace it. Thankfully, this also means that despite the actions of certain philo- sophical groups, humanity as a whole will continue to search for the absolute moral law and slowly adopt it. That is what evolution says. That also happens to be what most major religions say. What do you think? Does it sound log- ical? Is it hogwash? I want to know what you think. In the future, I'll be relying heavily on your comments, arguments and suggestions to shape future topics. - Mike Loper can be reached over e-mail at manatlargera iunich.edu. TENTATIVELY SPEAKING '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." T he Michigan Daily's editorials reflect the opinions of the paper as a whole, not those of individual editors or editorial staffers. The content and position of each editorial is determined by the Daily's editorial board and express a cohesive set of opinions guided by 108 years of previous editorials. Some of the Daily's stances are quite spe- cific - the Daily will always be pro-choice and pro-student. Other stances are less specif- ic. One of these stances has been in favor of gun control. Under normal circumstances, the Daily's position would be fleshed out over time, but tragic events in the last few months demand that the Daily take a harder and more direct position on gun con- trol.T ' Our decision is that no amount of gun control will S N amoun1 ever be sufficient - the Second Amendment must be " reinterpreted. Individual citi- Te zens should not be allowed to bear arms. This is both a just r i and necessary interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment: a o < si modern interpretation. h i d In just five months the £ nation has experienced high- T is profile massacres in Littleton, Colb., Conyers,wekiram Ga., Atlanta and Fort Worth, Texas. These tragedies may f have drawn attention to the problem of gun control, but they are only a small part of a great national tragedy. People have become so accustomed to gun violence that it takes a Columbine-scale event to garner notice. Guns lead to the tragi- cally senseless - and preventable - destruc- tion of human life. The purpose of the Second Amendment lies in maintaining a "well-regulated" armed civilian body, not private gun ownership. No gun control law brought before the Supreme Court or other federal courts ever has been overturned on Second Amendment grounds. Preserving Liberty To a certain degree, gun lobbyists are cor- rect in suggesting the Second Amendment is fundamental to preserving liberty. The drafters of the Constitution realized the necessity to provide citizens with a way to protect them- selves from an oppressive government. Thomas Jefferson said "...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism is their right, is their duty, to throw off such Government." When the constitution was ratified, each state had its own militia - a compulsory military force. Ordinary citizens served as part-time soldiers, protecting a young nation from potentially threatening outside forces and from internal rebellions. Member requirements included training and supplying their own firearms. The federal government soon established a permanent, professional military arm, but many of the Anti-Federalists feared a standing army could be used as a tool of oppression. State militias were viewed as a counterbalance to the federal army. Gun lobbyists such as the National Rifle Association often omit the crucial beginning of the Second Amendment: "a well-regulated militia." Times have changed. The Second Amencment has not grown obsolete. but the time. The right to protect oneself Gun-rights activists argue individuals have a right to protect themselves and their families with firearms. This position can be addressed with both statistics and common sense: According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or a friend than an intruder. But in a country where criminals often have more guns than law enforcement officials, people feel as if they have the right to adequately defend them- selves. The potential of self defense does not grant individuals the right to own guns. Everyone has the right to defend themselves. But this does not imply they have the specific right to confront an attacker with a firearm. And even if it was a right, that right s sshould certainly not be val- ued more than the right of ef "u F psntr the thousands of people who are victims of gun violence every year to live. Firearms Nsare by no means the only e bway an individual can f ha/f .defend themselves. Hunting, Shooting and h sGun Culture a g nOne of the distinguishing K characteristics of American FE culture is the prominence of > d n the firearm. There are an ihtip betwee estimated 192 million pri- egulatiOnl ad vately owned firearms in the es' reikably United States, 65 million of which are handguns. denta de