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.
There was discussion of it in the 1800's IIRC following the Sandbar Duel in which Jim Bowie used one to create horrendous wounds in his opponents. Fortunately, entrepreneurship won out and knife makers rushed to create more "Bowie" knives.
There is nothing new in anything the man says. I like the way he neatly avoids the fact that if it were not for an armed citizenry, The Revolutionary War could not have been fought.
Gun ownership, in the Founding Father’s day, was never given a second thought. It was simply a part of everyday life.
This revisionism is classic left nonsense. The constitution clearly states that the Fed. Gov’t is only endowed by the powers expressly defined in the Constitution. No where does the Constitution give the Fed. Gov’t. the power to outlaw gun ownership.
I can understand why Marxists want to ban guns, but they do not have the right to do it.
It is typical of this loon that he will be perfectly happy being a victim of a crime rather than fight back.
As another Army officer, IMHO, Walsh is a disgrace.
The notion that it is possible to deny access to anything otherwise available is specious at best. The law does not prevent crime, it punishes those who perpetuate it. Making drugs illegal does not reduce the instance of drug use. It drives their availability underground.
My father was killed by a punk using a Saturday night special, passed from thug to thug. Laws against guns would not have kept that gun off the streets. Dad was not averse to carrying, He simply never believed it was necessary.
My daughter is armed and trained. She can put a bullet through a bullet hole in a bull’s eye at 20 paces. She believes it is necessary to carry.
Good one!
Mr. Walsh, just because you can make a cancer-DNA analogy, doesn’t mean it makes sense.
Patrick doesn’t seem to be familiar with anything related to the 2nd amendment or its origins.
As far as I know, there was no federal army back then.
People really will say anything to make their point.
I use Break-Free CLP. I haven’t experienced gun cancer at all.
>>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.
>
>Not much skill there.
During my nine years as enlisted I routinely did that every time I qualified {a meter being approximately a yard, the 100m target was the easiest to hit}... and that was iron-sights, w/no-scope.
He looks like he was protected by “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
How do I keep my rifle from getting it?
Four years posted to Hawaii, as a commissioned officer? Oh, the horrors of military service!!
See above: gun oil.
Is crime out of control in areas where the law-abiding are allowed to defend themselves?
Is it perfectly peaceful in areas where they are not?
Why don’t you try to use some real world logic in your argument?
>During the Second Amendment Sisters March, I had a bunch of people get in my face and holler,
>
>WELL REGULATED!
>WELL REGULATED!
>WELL REGULATED!
Did you, or someone you were with, punch them in the face?
I’m thinking that’d be a good spot for a big-brother to say:
“Hey, that’s my sister you’re yelling at!” and then administer some physical attitude adjustment.
A fagwhoneversawcombateversays what?
I haven’t read through the comments yet, but his ‘original draft’ which doesn’t matter much, imo, is just as clearer or even clearer than the actual 2nd. It flat out says people can have arms first and then that the reason is in order to voluntarily serve in the militia. It also says just because you have guns doesn’t mean you have to serve. This guy’s premise starts out entirely back asswards in the worst way.
You’re not really dead if you get hacked up with a sword.
Nick Burgh told me so.
this guy does not believe in the constitution, or the spirit in which it was written, particularly the second amendment. The second amendment was written to give the power to overthrow a rogue government to the common man. It is therefore my opinion. that the common man must be armed sufficiently to engage and win against a government soldier. This means that any weapon the government possesses, the common man must have the ability to purchase and possess. This includes machine guns, grenades, tanks, cannon and anything else that a person has the ability to obtain. Any law regulating any firearm is dead against the spirit of the constitution as written
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