Basket.

Inevitably, the latest and deadliest ever school shooting in US history has cast the spotlight back on gun control - whether the United States of America ought to make a greater effort to regulate, or even ban, the possession of firearms. Not that I expect it to change anything, because of the entire Bill of Rights, the oft-quoted "right to bear arms" is considered sacrosanct.

The NRA, just as inevitably, has already been mentioned. On my tagboard, as well. Yet the NRA is only part of the entire issue (most commonly, merely its public face), which is rather more complicated. The reasons why gun control cannot come along easily are rooted deep in American history and the American psyche.

Why can't America ban guns? The first very simple explanation is that it is a democracy, and those people who believe in the right to own firearms still outnumber those who don't. Many of the former grouping belong in very high places, at that. It would then be quite obviously futile to attempt to push through strict gun laws, as strong public and legislative opposition will ensure the failure of such a movement. But why exactly is this "right to bear arms" so sacred, so important, so dear, to the American people?

Let us examine the relevant portion: the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America:

"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."

The key terms being:

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.

Quite simply, what it is saying is that the People need to be well-armed in order to face down a potentially rogue, tyrannical government, to overthrow it and restore liberty to all. A militia, after all, is traditionally an irregular force formed by ordinary citizens to protect their homes, families and territory against hostile invaders, foreign or local. And the ideal of a responsible, well-kept and maintained militia is very much an integral part of America's national consciousness. It is one of their founding myths, so to speak.

The Second Amendment was promulgated against the backdrop of a young nation, newly independent, thinking of itself as newly liberated and determined to remain that way. The political struggle in this new entity was between Alexander Hamilton's Federalists, advocating a strong central government, and the AntiFederalists, arguing for a rather looser union of states. The argument of the latter group, of course, was that a strong central government would have a tendency towards despotism. They feared the creation and maintenance of a large standing army, which the central government could potentially utilise to apply maximum rule. The Second Amendment was born out of the need to placate such fears; a vast militia of armed citizens outside the control of the central government would greatly hinder, to say the least, any attempt by this government to impose absolute rule.

Over the centuries, such a view has been endlessly romanticised. It was American irregulars, after all, who fired the first shots of the American Revolution - at Lexington and Concord (which incidentally occured on this day in 1776). A myth was born: the myth of the Minutemen; strong, young, healthy, crack shots ready at a moment's notice (hence the name) to defend "inalienable rights" and "self-evident truths". Having freed their nation from British tyranny (this view is in itself a fallacy, but that's another story), the American militia now stood a ready bulwark against dark forces of tyranny and absolutist evil. A nation, kept at liberty with arms.

The truth down the centuries has, of course, been rather more prosiac. The performance of the American militia in the Revolution itself was deplorable, and it did equally badly in the War of 1812. In addition, Lincoln's extraordinary suspensions of civil liberty (including habeas corpus) during the Civil War provoked little reaction from these supposed guardians of liberty. Yet the myth endured, and endures still, fed by incidents such as the true heroism of the defenders of the Alamo. It is a part of America's national consciousness, and it is simply not possible to extract this part and decry gun ownership as outdated and brutal. To do so would be tantamount, to an American, to questioning not only his/her rights, but also his understanding of his/her nation's history and identity. It might be asking too much.

We cannot expect anyone to forget 250 years of history in an instant, and ditch treasured national myths all that easily. I definitely am not for loosely regulated gun ownership (or even private gun ownership, for that matter), but we do need to understand that there are very good reasons why the American government can't just ban guns - and why the NRA shouldn't need to be the fall guy all the time.