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Letter: Founding fathers would be appalled

For the Monitor

Monday, December 31, 2012

Even in a democracy, there are few if any absolute rights. Freedom of speech does not extend to slander, libel or lying under oath. Freedom of religion does not extend to human sacrifice. “We the people,” along with our judicial system, are constantly balancing individual versus communal rights.

The gun lobby has imposed on us the idea of an absolute right to gun ownership. But increasing numbers of Americans are deciding that a child’s right to be safe in school, at church, at the movies, at a mall and at home takes precedence over a supposed right to acquire unlimited weapons of mass destruction.

Anyone who reads the Second Amendment in its historic context can see that it confers no absolute right to acquire guns. It is explicitly and entirely conditional on the assumption of a “well-regulated militia,” which is an obvious anachronism today. The gun lobby ignores the first clause, and makes Holy Writ of the second.

The only concern of the authors of the Second Amendment was to assure the original colonies, who had just fought a war for independence and were skittish about joining a federal union, that yes, they could keep their militias; no one would try to disarm them.

Our founding fathers would be appalled to see their careful, judicious work used to justify the rising tide of assault weapons in a nation they dreamed would protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

RUSSELL ROWLAND

Meredith

sail wrote:
02/01/2013

"One simple question the global warm-mongers have never been able to answer is……that if in fact warming is taking place as they claim, what then is the optimum temperature of the Earth? Can they give us a number? is it 55 degrees? 78 degrees? 85 degrees? 98.6? Al Gore says the Earth has a fever – then what is the “normal” temperature?"
gdn1 wrote:
02/01/2013

So in other words, when the First and Fourth Amendments refer to the people, it means the people; but when the Second Amendment refers to the people it really means a militia?
jonasmt wrote:
01/01/2013

Wow, I have rarely seen the monitor so wrong. The Militia is defined in federal law 10 USC 311 pasted below. (a)The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b)The classes of the militia are— (1)the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2)the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
TCB wrote:
31/12/2012

Russell, Please don't give your personal opinion and paint it with the brush of validated statistics. You speak for most Americans? You are a constitutional scholar? It all looks so simple -doesn't it? Deeper review will reveal that the volumes of "gun control" laws have NOT been effective or we would not be talking. Of course, we all want safe streets, safe homes and safe kids. More laws - saying the same things as the previous shelves of laws - will not help. We now have practical energy weapons (no magazines) what then - ban light & sounds? Recently a couple of students downloaded and computer manufactured a workable weapon from non-detectable materials . More volumes of "gun laws" will do nothing for that growing trend. There is much we can do but first we need to stop wasting time, money and energy on a concept with a long history of ineffectiveness. We can do better than repeating failure.
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