I have been assaulted this morning by a wave of Supreme Court decisions which have flexed the muscles of the conservative majority with 6-3 votes which have strongly favored gun rights in America and supported the Trump anti-immigration policies that are all about restricting asylum seekers from our shores and deporting specific immigrants like Haitians and Syrians who we are generically deeming undesirable by some. Given that SCOTUS is anxious to go on their summer vacation so Samuel Alito can fly his MAGA flags on his vacation home and Clarence Thomas can get in his questionably-obtained RV and see more of our beautiful country, there are other decisions being handed down as well. I am somewhat less bothered by the Roundup litigation reversal since that seems very technical based on state versus federal laws and whether a federal regulator like the EPA (even one under the questionable leadership of the Trump Administration) has preeminence over state laws in forcing companies to “do what’s right” in their warning labeling. But the gun and immigration decisions are deeply, deeply troubling to me. I am a staunch believer that much of our country is abusing and misinterpreting the intentions of the Second Amendment, but I understand that the issues of legal precedent and the debates about strict and literal interpretations of Founding Father intent is a difficult issue. The immigration issues have far less to do with Constitutional interpretation since the drafters of our Constitution were probably far less focused on keeping people out than they were in attracting more people to come. But both issue seem to me to boil down to who we are as a nation and as a civilized and compassionate people and therein lies my conundrum this morning.
The text and historical basis of the Second Amendment (drafted in 1791) reads: “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.” It emerged from English common law and the 1689 English Bill of Rights, which recognized a right to arms for Protestants. The Colonial reliance on militias for defense is what drove it, since the new nation had no standing army and there was no widespread distrust of centralized military power and fear that a federal government could disarm citizens or impose tyranny, as Britain had attempted before the Revolution. The amendment’s two clauses sit in tension: a “militia” justification followed by a right belonging to “the people.” This split has led to two main readings. Individual-right view (now the dominant legal position) is that the militia clause is prefatory, explaining one reason for the right, not limiting who holds it. “The people” elsewhere in the Bill of Rights (1st, 4th Amendments) means individuals, not just collective bodies. Self-defense is a pre-existing natural right the amendment protects, not grants. The collective/militia-right view (which is the older judicial and continuing scholarly position) is that the amendment’s purpose was tied to maintaining organized state militias, now arguably fulfilled by the National Guard. People on that side argue that the newer view departs from the original meaning and historical practice, and that the Founders never intended an unlimited individual right untethered to civic defense.
Where the practical debate lands today is that gun-rights advocates emphasize self-defense, deterrence against government overreach, and skepticism that restrictions reduce crime meaningfully. Meanwhile, gun-control advocates point to firearm injury and mortality data, argue rights can coexist with reasonable regulation (as other constitutional rights do), and contend that the “text, history, and tradition” test makes it harder to justify modern public-safety measures. How the US compares to countries with stricter gun laws seems relevant because ultimately we have a government to protect its citizens from harm. In the US, there were 44,447 total gun deaths in 2024 — 27,593 by suicide, 15,364 by homicide, plus accidental and law enforcement deaths. That gives an overall rate of 12.8 gun deaths per 100,000 people (age-adjusted) in 2024 (7.6 from suicide and 4.7 from homicide). Countries with strict gun control had rates far lower homicide rates…Canada 0.7, Italy 0.2, Australia & Spain 0.1, UK 0.25, and Iceland…0 (as in no firearm homicides). Among 65 high-income countries, the US ranks 7th for firearm homicide rate (higher being worse), behind several Latin American/Caribbean nations and territories. It’s worth noting that the US gun suicide rate was second only to Greenland. A widely cited cross-national study found a strong correlation (r=0.80) between civilian gun ownership rates and firearm death rates across developed countries with Japan and the US as opposite poles. It’s worth noting that its debatable how much of this gap is attributable to gun laws specifically versus other factors (gun ownership rates, poverty, urban density, mental health systems, drug/gang violence). The same study found no significant correlation between gun ownership and overall crime rates, which gun-rights advocates cite as evidence that availability isn’t the main driver of violence, while gun-control advocates point to the homicide/suicide correlation as the more relevant figure. Both sides agree the US is a clear outlier among wealthy nations on raw gun death numbers — the disagreement is about cause and policy response. The Trump policy, which is clearly reflected by SCOTUS, is to feed the pro-gun lobby and advocate for an armed citizenry as our mantra. What’s best for the collective population seems irrelevant to them.
As for immigration, before the current Trump term, the US was about in the middle of the OECD high income countries in terms of its foreign-born share of population. Higher than us were Australia: 32%, Ireland: 23%, Canada: 22%, Austria: 22%, Sweden: 21%, UK: 19%, Germany: 19%, Spain: 18%, and only then the US at 15%. Below us were France: 14%, Italy: 11%, and Japan: 2%. In 2024 the US admitted 1,425,000 new permanent immigrants of which 6% were labor migrants, 68% family members, and 17% humanitarian. That’s a heavily family-based system, in contrast to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which run points-based systems that prioritize skills, education, and job offers more explicitly. The US recorded the highest number of new humanitarian migrants among OECD countries with 249,000. But with the new Trump 2025 policy shift, the US moved sharply toward restriction. The US share of international students has fallen 19% from its 2019 peak, and the US recorded a net negative flow of published scientific authors for the first time in 2021, losing ground mainly to China. The 2025 shift moved firmly toward restriction and enforcement rather than toward any semblance of a job, family or humanitarian approach.
As we approach our 250th anniversary as a nation next week, and I am hardly the only one who feels this way… we seem to have lost our way. This is not the country that I grew up desperate to rejoin from my expat existence. I am not a conscientious objector, I believe we need a strong military in a big bad world and guns are a part of that, but I do not believe we need to be or should be the aggressor/warrior that we seem to want to be under Trump. Being strong and being a bully are two different things and we are trending toward the bully role. I believe in law and order, but I see no need for the hateful us v. them approach to law enforcement and the us v. them elements of recent immigration policy. That’s not who we are supposed to be as a society. We are supposed to always strive for greater enlightenment, not more insularity, right? But according to the gospel of MAGA, its all about what’s good for us and about being tough. This morning I am thinking that I no longer recognize my own country and what it seems to want to be and that makes me very sad. I have always loved this country very deeply, the way a child with his face pressed up against the expat glass is compelled to do. The symbols of America…the get-the-job-done military, the Norman Rockwell cop-on-the-beat painting of The Runaway…helping the child rather than rousting him, the welcoming neighbor rather than the gun-toting red-neck, the huddled masses staring up in admiration at the Statue of Liberty…all things that were the American Way. What happened? How did we lose our way?