Ruth Jost: We Must Balance Our Right to Guns With The Right To Life

We were a definite minority in this sometimes raucous crowd (photo by Jonathan Murch)

The following statement by Ruth Stoltzfus Jost at Wednesday's hearing by the County Board of Supervisors (on Rockingham County becoming a "Second Amendment Sanctuary") was repeatedly interrupted by boos and jeers from a crowd of some 3000 present. I post it here with her kind permission:

I'm Ruth Jost, a law-abiding gun owner from west Rockingham County. 

I appreciated the lawful use of a gun six days ago when I looked out my window and saw a beautiful 8-point buck that had been injured, thrashing and writhing in the pasture. It took exactly one shot from my neighbor's .257 bolt-action rifle to put it down (And yes, we're going to freeze and can that venison!).

This resolution was written to support my gun rights.  But the most important constitutional right our state and federal governments are bound to protect is the right to life itself. The resolution seems to misunderstand the balance of our right to guns with the right to life --which we protect through gun safety legislation.  

Preventing misuse of guns is the best way to protect their ownership and proper use. In fact, our gun rights are safe so long as gun safety is right. 

Some years ago as a lawyer I represented a woman in a custody dispute here in Harrisonburg. She testified that her husband drove by the house with his gun as she was standing in the front doorway holding their child. He fired at her.The bullet missed and went into the door frame beside her head.

When the judge ruled against this man on the custody of their child he exploded. He ran out of the courtroom to get his gun and his family ran after him. I don't know to this day whether it was his family or an officer who reached him in time. I, like my client and everybody else in the courtroom, was crouching below the windows until we thought enough time had passed. Chances are that in following days my client, like many thousands of women terrorized by domestic violence, had to lay low, go into hiding, or move away. 

If Virginia had had a red flag law then and a court had found that this man who shot at the heads of his wife and child was a violent person his firearm would have been temporarily taken and he would not have had his gun in the car that day. It is no surprise that this law has broad support, including among gun owners: a law abiding person recognizes that this law can protect that most important right: the right to life.

We all know gun rights aren't absolute and the Supreme Court has held they can be limited for legitimate safety concerns. 

Yet the language of this resolution appears to assume that any new gun safety law will be unconstitutional and implies that local officials will determine that and refuse to enforce it.

Does that mean that in a case like the one I described our law enforcement officials may decline to remove a firearm from a person determined by a judge to be violent? I do not want our county or our officers to risk being held liable for harm based on a misunderstanding that this resolution creates.

Our courts, not local officials, determine the constitutionality of our laws. I am confident our officials will enforce the law in the future as they have in the past. This document should be tabled and revised to reflect a balanced approach to the importance of gun safety.

December 11, 2019

For a constitutional scholar's take on the Second Amendment:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/second-amendment-text-context/555101/

For a mother's account of the meeting, with a response her young son prepared for the Board of Supervisors, see: 
https://www.jennifermurch.com/2019/12/second-amendment-sanctuary.html?fbclid=IwAR2iEPHXK2Ye3iczkEHiI1Li6TIh7sv_40HdPFmItyr5lZpn4OuY0xpMshc#comment-form