Cheryl Pass’s recent article, “Understanding the Second Amendment and Why We Have It,” she wrote, “To read the current trend in media, you would think a majority of Americans are screaming to have their natural rights taken away.” She wrote, “No one wants to stand up for the ‘right to bear arms,” forgetting to mention that the NRA, many Republicans and Democrats, and Fox News stand up for the virtually unlimited right to bear arms. These groups are so powerful and wealthy that Congress won’t even bring up common sense regulation for a vote. Gun ownership is a legal right. In the real world, almost all polls report that 70 to 90 percent of American citizens want common sense gun regulations. I don’t mind screaming and standing up for things like the right to clean water and clean air as rights of all living things.
Our Second Amendment states, “A well-regulated Militia, necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It seems to me that a “well-regulated” militia means, well, regulations! In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in Heller vs. District of Columbia that people can possess a firearm unconnected to military service. So it’s the law. Again: Only uninformed people are saying the government wants to take all your guns. Over 200 years ago you may have had to protect your family or shoot a rabbit for dinner. But today, isn’t it reasonable that assault style weapons our founding fathers didn’t envision should be regulated?
That is why they provided for amendments. Our brilliant forefathers had no way of knowing all the types of guns that would be invented in the future. They didn’t foresee automobiles either,
