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Nation's gun cancer spreads
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | May 3, 2010 | Patrick Walsh

Posted on 05/03/2010 8:52:31 AM PDT by Second Amendment First

After graduating from college, I served four years as an infantry officer in the Army's 25th Infantry Division. I fired everything from 9mm pistols to .50-caliber machine guns, routinely qualifying as "expert" with an M16A2 rifle.

It's not despite such experience, but precisely because of it, that I think the availability of guns in America is stunningly negligent public policy. And it may get worse.

One needn't be a constitutional law scholar to discern the Founding Fathers' intent in the Second Amendment. The original draft presented to the first session of the first Congress read: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." (The emphasis is mine.)

Clearly, the framers placed the right to bear arms within the context of organized military service. They wished to highlight the distinction between state militias and the federal army. They viewed state militias as a check against the misuse of the army to impose centralized tyranny.

Even the treacherous, 27-word version of the amendment with which we contend today retains and begins with the phrase, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state ..."

Scientists talk about gene "expression" when referring to how the inherited instructions of our DNA are converted into working proteins in our bodies - an interpretive process. With interpretation can come error, and serious errors in gene expression can lead to diseases such as cancer.

America has a cancer originating in the misinterpretation of our government's DNA, the Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down an erroneous interpretation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, striking down a handgun ban in Washington and endorsing the misconception that individuals have a right to own firearms. Now, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the court could compound the error by striking down a Chicago gun ban, extending the principle beyond the District of Columbia.

The old gun lobby claim "guns don't kill people" is specious. No one rails against the manufacture of axes or baseball bats; there are no campaigns to ban Bowie knives.

With a bolt-action rifle and a telescopic sight, I could put a bullet through my neighbor from a hundred yards away as he crosses his living room. With a Glock 17 pistol stashed in my briefcase, I could enter a boardroom, coolly dispatch a dozen executives, and still have five rounds left to deal with the security guards.

To put it another way, Virginia Tech doesn't happen if Seung-Hui Cho is brandishing a sword. Columbine doesn't happen if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are wielding Louisville Sluggers. Charles Whitman doesn't kill 14 people at the University of Texas at Austin if he takes up his sniping position armed with a longbow.

Take it from a former soldier: A gun's power is arbitrary and wildly disproportionate to its price, size, and ease of use. Before the advent of firearms, becoming dangerous meant years of training, if not membership in a warrior caste. Cho simply used a credit card to pay $571 for a Glock 19 and 50 bullets.

A Glock 19 weighs less than a quart of milk; it measures under 7 inches long. Its operation is simple: load, point, shoot 15 times, reload. In one span of nine minutes, Cho killed 30 people and wounded dozens more.

I once carried a rifle in defense of the Constitution. Now I wield a pen and must trust the adage about its superiority. But I admit to feeling outgunned by madmen like Cho and the Supreme Court justices who think more guns are the answer.

Patrick Walsh is a writer who lives in Princeton. He served as a rifle platoon leader, battalion adjutant, and company executive officer in the Fifth Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; barackhusseinobama; bloggers; obama; obamavoter; shallnotbeinfringed
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To: caver

It’s probably worse than that. He probably feels entitled to possession of guns based on military experience; the peons simply have to go without.


101 posted on 05/03/2010 9:38:47 AM PDT by scott7278 ("...I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked." BHO)
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To: Second Amendment First

Patrick, you will love our neighbor Mexico. They do not allow guns there. You will also find that, you marathon man you, will have ample opportunity to use that experience.
Just running ,and running.


102 posted on 05/03/2010 9:40:30 AM PDT by lrb111 (resist)
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To: Repeat Offender
Aren't we glad the libs control the univesities and we require officer candidaes to have college degrees? This way we can ensure an officer corps of f'n idiots.

Not necessarily idiots, but over-educated liberal pansies. There aren't very many flag officers that have been able to get the level of education required for their rank, and resist the indoctrination of the left.
103 posted on 05/03/2010 9:41:29 AM PDT by Tailback
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To: Second Amendment First
LibertyLeadingHerPeople How can Liberty lead her people forward if they people have been turned into sheeple...like this zip wad "writer".
104 posted on 05/03/2010 9:41:40 AM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Yes I know there are exceptions, I know some rich private folks had cannon. But there really is no equivalent to a nuke, that was the closest thing. Just to illustrate the Founders never thought the 2nd Amendment meant citizens were going to be able to have every single type of weapon the militia/armed forces would have. They understood that if we ever did have to fight against the government, men armed personally would kill off the warped government forces and take over their heavier equipment.


105 posted on 05/03/2010 9:44:41 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Monterrosa-24

today the sheeple just see that picture and focus on the topless woman. Never seeing the point of the picture.


106 posted on 05/03/2010 9:45:53 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: facedown
“With a bolt-action rifle and a telescopic sight, I could put a bullet through my neighbor from a hundred yards away as he crosses his living room.”

When he cal “eyeball ‘em” at three hundred yards, then and not before, is it time to take his marksmanship seriously.

As for his thesis in this article, taking that seriesly will have to wait until the day after the Twelfth of Never.

107 posted on 05/03/2010 9:46:33 AM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: Second Amendment First

My Gay-dar just went off........


108 posted on 05/03/2010 9:47:59 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Peanut butter was just peanut butter until I found Free Republic.........)
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To: Second Amendment First
As I recall the U. S. Supreme Court recently decided contrary to the opinions on guns that the decadent expressed in his article.

I think that with this internet business almost anyone can become a pundit. We have no means of sorting out a persons competence except by reading their articles. At least under the old system of organized media their was a kind of screening done by the editorial boards.

This guy is a hack writer expressing a trite opinion i.e. gun ownership is a collective right not an individual right. Silly!

109 posted on 05/03/2010 9:48:17 AM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: Clemenza

Said another way, a Princetonian is basically a Berkelyite who bathes?

So noted.


110 posted on 05/03/2010 9:48:35 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (No Representation without Taxation!)
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To: Joe Brower

Another Obama Zombie...


111 posted on 05/03/2010 9:50:01 AM PDT by blackie (Be Well~Be Armed~Be Safe~Molon Labe!)
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To: Secret Agent Man

***But there really is no equivalent to a nuke, that was the closest thing.***

At that time, the constitution allowed Congress to grant “Letters of Marque” allowing private sailing vessels to become privateers against whom we were at war with.


112 posted on 05/03/2010 9:50:41 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Second Amendment First
With a bolt-action rifle and a telescopic sight, I could put a bullet through my neighbor from a hundred yards away as he crosses his living room. With a Glock 17 pistol stashed in my briefcase, I could enter a boardroom, coolly dispatch a dozen executives, and still have five rounds left to deal with the security guards.

The fact that you even think this way is reason enough for you to choose not to own firearms. But most of us don't think that way, Patrick. Your argument is "I could 'cooly' be a homicidal maniac with my guns, so no one should own guns". Get some help, you freakin' moonbat.

113 posted on 05/03/2010 9:53:51 AM PDT by spodefly (This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)
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To: Second Amendment First

“Clearly, the framers placed the right to bear arms within the context of organized military service.”

Yes - with the principle that participants were armed FIRST, _then_ joined in.


114 posted on 05/03/2010 10:00:06 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (+)
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To: gmoore57

Yep...I feel extremely safe in church, because if a bad guy came in he wouldn’t know what hit him. I know that the church members won’t be shooting at me.


115 posted on 05/03/2010 10:00:30 AM PDT by scott7278 ("...I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked." BHO)
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To: facedown

With a 300 win mag. I could put it through his eye at 300 yards-and I aint kidding either.

I wonder what he’d say to that?


116 posted on 05/03/2010 10:04:14 AM PDT by crz
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To: facedown
Not much skill there.

No kidding. With my 65 year-old Mosin-Nagant and open sights, I can put several bullets in the 8, 9, and 10 rings at 200 yards (that bloody X taunts me, though).

117 posted on 05/03/2010 10:06:04 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (Liberal Logic: Mandatory health insurance is constitutional - enforcing immigration law is not.)
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To: Second Amendment First
I once carried a rifle in defense of the Constitution.

Well, thank you for that.

Now I wield a pen and must trust the adage about its superiority. But I admit to feeling outgunned by madmen like Cho and the Supreme Court justices who think more guns are the answer.

Please go back to your books and read the Federalist papers, and understand the full meaning of "well regulated militia" and how that relates to the "security of a free State", and how that end was to be achieved.

It will put new meaning (for you) to the phrase "...the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed."(emphasis mine)

118 posted on 05/03/2010 10:06:46 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: IYAS9YAS
(that bloody X taunts me, though)

I swear it moves when you're not looking.

119 posted on 05/03/2010 10:09:13 AM PDT by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Pan_Yan
“56 million people murdered by their own governments in the 20th century.” Wow is that a conservative estimate.

New Version

120 posted on 05/03/2010 10:11:41 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (FYBO: Islam is a religion of peace, and Muslims reserve the right to kill anyone who says otherwise.)
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