Until I see the possibility of the enactment of sensible laws to regulate ownership of guns in the United States, I have no words. I am silenced by the insanity of acceptance of a culture of frequent mass shootings with no will to change.
"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."
Surely, when the framers of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution included the words "A well regulated Militia", they did not intend the amendment to give free rein to the carnage we see happening all too frequently today. Why do we continue to ignore the words "well-regulated" in the amendment? That is all.
Until I see the possibility of the enactment of sensible laws to regulate ownership of guns in the United States, I have no words. I am silenced by the insanity of acceptance of a culture of frequent mass shootings with no will to change.
The true irony is that the Founders thought of the Second Amendment and a well regulated militia as the best way to avoid what they called a standing army--a large military establishment. (Read the Virginia version of the Second Amendment, which lays it out very clearly.) Yet if you drew a Venn diagram, the set of people who are military hawks would have a very large overlap with the people who are against gun control. It's as if the Second Amendment has been rewritten by Orwell's Newspeakers..
ReplyDeleteKishnevi
Very interesting, kishnevi. Now we have the huge standing army, which we must keep occupied by making war, and the folks who want no regulations on the vast numbers of "militia" out there who own guns. We should not be surprised by the consequences.
Delete(Trying again to see if the new comment feature will let me post here.)
ReplyDeleteI found this page of quotes from the Founding Fathers and others, on both sides of the issue, which seems to me a useful starting point for an informed discussion:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Though of course, we live in different times and a society changed beyond all recognition from what the Founders knew. The challenge is to extract the wise principles behind their words and apply them to modern life.
The muskets and pistols in existence at the time the Bill of Rights were written are quite different from the firearms of today.
DeleteOver and over I've asked why is the "well-regulated militia" phrase ignored, and why are all regulations ruled out? What we have now looks like the olden days of the Wild West when guns ruled.