Posted on 02/05/2007 8:15:23 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
On New Year’s Eve, my friend and rowing teammate was killed by a gun in Dunbar. Regardless of who pulled the trigger, I blame the gun.
Guns were invented with the specific purpose to kill. People were not. Disturbed people pull triggers, but do not directly send speeding bullets through people’s skin and souls. My friend, University of Charleston alumna Lori Francis, is no longer living because she couldn’t stop the bullet that ended her life.
I wrote the Gazette in 2003 regarding a shooting at my graduate college, the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia. Ironically, I finished that submission two hours before I rode my bicycle toward my Lee St. apartment, past the Kanawha County Board of Education building, which was suffering after-affects of another school shooting. For the second time in two years, a former teacher of mine was shot.
I used to think school shootings followed me. But now, I realize that school shootings rather follow a national trend that shows no signs of slowing. It does not slow because the only solution is one that makes the most sense — but sounds the most ridiculous.
In my 2003 submission, I called for abolition of guns. I cited school and workplace shootings initiated by disturbed people, but concluded by bullets. I continue to call for the abolition of guns for the same reason that left my friend and her parents dead in their Dunbar apartment: Americans are in love with guns and are not brave enough to part with them.
The constitutionality of possible gun abolition would be an issue with many Americans who are law-abiding gun owners. But it is the courts that interpret the Constitution, not the popular vote. The Second Amendment states: “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.” In United States v. Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted this provision to mean that citizens do not have an individual right to bear arms unless they possess “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.”
In United States v. Warin, the Sixth Circuit provided more context to this interpretation, stating: “Since the Second Amendment ... applies only to the right of the state to maintain a militia and not to the individual’s right to bear arms, there can be no serious claim to any express constitutional right to possess a firearm.” Neither Miller nor Warin has been overruled.
My distant ancestor, Major Gen. Ambrose Burnside, was the first president of the National Rifle Association. Gen. Burnside would have liked Lori Francis. He would have liked her heart and passion. Gen. Burnside would not like, however, what his organization has become and what it promotes. The NRA was founded by some old Army officers disappointed by their soldier’s marksmanship skills. Its purpose was “providing firearms training and encouraging interest in the shooting sports.” It is now a gun-promoting juggernaut that appears to suggest that teachers should be armed to combat the growing number of school shootings. I don’t think my ancestor would approve of the NRA’s solution to stopping violence in America today.
In the late 1990s, you may have seen Lori Francis rowing on the Kanawha River. She rowed hard and never complained. She rowed on a lightweight crew but had a heavyweight heart. She rowed with a peaceful fluidity. Lori will never row again as her dreams were cut short because of a gun. In 2007, more innocent people like Lori will die in West Virginia because of other guns. There will be several school and workplace shootings in 2007. People will die in those shootings because of guns. As usual, no one with power and influence will offer any solutions other than arming more people with more guns.
It’s about time the coxswains of our government do something about the guns that are shooting holes in the boat they command, which we call America. As they continue to promote more guns for more crime, our vessel of prosperity and peace continues to sink. How much longer can stubbornness for a misguided view of the Second Amendment keep us afloat? Sadly, not long enough for our society to ever row like Lori did.
[Burnside is a trial lawyer in Cleveland. He graduated from the University of Charleston in 1999 and was an employee of the West Virginia Senate and Kanawha County Public Defender’s Office.]
The same gun?
So first this gun kills this lawyer's friend, then rolls over (I'm guessing it must have been a revolver) to this other house and kills three more people? And how did it commit suicide - trying to fire a .45 round in a 9 mm barrel?
I was prepared to post the same fact about the West Virginia (Where this piece was published).
Mr. Burnside simply proves here why the law profession, in general, is held in such low regard.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I was simply pointing out that all these gun-haters are clueless about the realities of their agenda.
The sad and inevitable result when there are generations of inbreeding with liberals.
But people get strangled too. The common factor, clearly, is hands. People don't kill people: hands kill people.
This guy's approach is too hands-off for me. I will not stop until this instrument of evil, hands, are abolished. Idle hands are indeed the Devil's workshop. Constitutionality? Hey, the second amendment clearly states "the right of the people to ... bare arms, shall not be infringed." I will travel the country, stumping for this needed change to our society.
Actually, there is a better seed for an infinite discussion with the title alone:
"...Abolition is the only way to stop the madness"
Cars kill over 50,000 people every year; Outlaw cars.
Falls killed 17,229 in 2003; Outlaw gravity.
Death by innanimate objects, 2658; outlaw inanimate objects.
Accidental drowning and submersion, 3306; outlaw water.
Death by intentional self harm, 31484; outlaw people.
The silliness season has no limits.
Ignorance can be fixed; stupidity is forever.
He's right. As long as there are loons like this out there, I'm too terrified to give up my guns.
I often wonder if these morons ever really consider the logistics involved in facilitating their wet dream?
Do they really think that 80 million+ gun owners are just going to quietly turn their firearms in? Many undoubtably would, but if even 5% refused, that's 4 million no-knock warrants to serve.
How many Wacos do they think they can get away with before it becomes open season on them?
A member of the most ethical profession wouldn't omit a few pertinent facts to help make their case, would they?
Paging Henry Bowman.
James Webb in his book on the Scots-Irish made the case that Gore lost WV gun of gun control..so it seems futile to write such a piece in WV's largest paper
However, I have noticed an increase in anti-gun editorials since the DEMS took over in Nov
Actually this lawyer makes two main points, one of which isn't being discussed here. The first is arguable; the second is demonstrable (or conditionally) false.
The first is that guns were invented for the specific purpose of killing.
This is an obvious, albeit silly observation, clearly beyond debate. What follows in his reasoning is not.
Not exactly a controversial insight, since the first and most obvious application is hunting for food, a natural and human activity, uncontroversial and normal since the age of man, and deemed undesirable only by the most tortuous reasoning.
The step to killing other humans is but a small one, and can lower the complexity of the argument to contention, since that specific use for defense can not be faulted except for the most handicapped and victim-inclined minds. So, in addition to being self-serving, this argument must be hundreds of years old, but I'm sure this lawyer deems it his original and deep insight.
The second point is blame. This is clearly an assault on language and common sense, since, if we examine the common word in this context, the dictionary is quite explicit: Blame stresses censure or punishment for a lapse or misdeed for which one is held accountable.
Clearly, inanimate objects don't qualify.
I am painfully aware that the "legal" world and the real world don't necessarily coincide; "Black" can be legislated to mean "white", "Constitutional" can have different and conflicting meanings (and punishments) at different times, and animals and inanimate objects can be legislated into legal human beings. But that can be only temporary, if accepted at all.
The whole flavor of this article can be most charitably be described as sophistry.
MORON ALERT!!
If the killing was done with a baseball bat, would you blame the bat?
MORON ALERT!
Sorry for the death but the gun worked as advertised. I blame the shooter and left in society for cheapening life.
Nice try loser. The courts were commenting on the value of a sawed off shotgun to the 'militia', not the suitability of the citizen to bear arms.
Interesting enough, today's military and police forces, value the shotgun with a 14" barrel, which citizens are forbidden to possess.
You argue for an idea that is stupid. I blame your keyboard.
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