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.
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.
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.
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.
today the sheeple just see that picture and focus on the topless woman. Never seeing the point of the picture.
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.
My Gay-dar just went off........
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!
Said another way, a Princetonian is basically a Berkelyite who bathes?
So noted.
Another Obama Zombie...
***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.
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.
“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.
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.
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?
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).
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)
I swear it moves when you're not looking.
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