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.
Great, thanks, I’ll give it a try, it doesn’t seem like I have much to lose since the gun doesn’t presently shoot, and I can’t find a local gunsmith.
There are hardly any gunsmiths left in N.J. The state gov’t has made it so difficult to do business most have either shut down, or moved. The cops are even having a rough time finding someone to fix guns.
I’ve been giving serious thought about getting in to it on the side as a retirement thing because there are so few people who still do it, yet a large demand. And I know how to use tools.
Oooooo... Tough duty.
And you can find out all sorts of stuff people were hoping you wouldn't.
His experience with guns is nothing compared to all that hardcore combat he saw while leading a rifle platoon in Hawaii. Oh the horrors he must have witnessed. Typical Ivy League liberal blowhard.
And is a traitor to his oath of office:
To find out if you have a firing pin problem, try charging the bolt assembly, then relase the sear and hold the trigger all the way back, to see if the firing pin extends out of the front of the bolt assembly. If it doesn't, you at least need to replace the firing pin, but replace the retainer pin while you're at it.
I have seen the extractors on well used but poorly cleaned .22 rifles be the actual problem when one won't fire. If the extractor is gooped up so that it will not fit over the back of the shell, the round may not get a proper strike fromt he firing pin and thus not fire the round. Look closely at the extractor to see if debris has gotten under the portion which needs to grasp the shell. I see it with pistols and Hi-Point rifles that aren't cleaned properly. .22 rifles are notoriously dirty shooters. Put a hard bristle tooth brush in your gun bag and a small bottle of CLP ... if you shoot .22s a lot. A tooth pick can clean behind the extractor nib, in a pinch.
“The 18th century equivalent of heavy weaponry was a cannon.”
Quite right. If I recall correctly, Col. Moultrie pulled cannons from his barn when he was given command to defend Charleston from British Commander Sir Peter Parker and his 8 British warships that stalked Charleston Harbor. On June 28, 1776, the Colonel and the 1st and 2nd Carolina Regiments answered the British bombarment on Sullivan’s Island with nine and 12 pound cannon shot (Moultrie’s arms) to defeat the British fleet, which suffered 64 dead and more than 100 wounded.
To be properly armed, the federal armories should be opened to citizens and the various arms must be fairly distributed to American citizens so inclined to store assorted weaponry in various barns and garages.
Obviously positioned about 3 grades above his skill level.
That’s a good point. It always seems like leftist liars always claim to have been marines.
Thanks a lot for the info. I’ve been looking for someone with your kind of knowledge for about 6 months now.
I guess I should have tried fellow Freepers first!
Thanks again. I’ll let you know how I make out.
I don't know why you LAMEBRAINS are still trotting out the collective right thing. That issue is DEAD AND BURIED.
NOW GO AWAY, YOU ANNOY ME.
</barf>
Oh, c’mon give the guy a break.
I mean for a pansy from Princeton to have to go all the way over the Pacific to Hawaii in a military transport with a “don’t ask don’t tell” atmosphere in itself must have been a traumatic experience. I mean doesn’t that qualify him for hero status?
Excellent. I never really thought 911 that way and I will use that fact every time I get into an argument about guns with a librobot.
Bottom line is - if you want to kill people you will find a way with or without guns. It’s the brain behind the trigger, or fuse, or knife, or axe, or baseball bat, or whatever, that decides to kill - not the implement itself.
I hope this Walsh guy is prepared when he comes to my house to take my guns.
On a similar note, it looks like the CA Legislature wants to ban Open Carry and Register Long Guns in addition to Hand Guns that already have to be Registered..
So along with not comprehending meaning of our founding documents, the author is also an economic imbecile.
So, Patty, if a gang of thugs were to be, say, sexually molesting your wife, and I came upon the scene with my pistol on my person, would you want me to intervene with the benefit of my firearm?
Freedom.
The Government doesn’t give it to you, you must defend it.
hell, I could do that with a slingshot and ball bearing.
Yes, I did use Patty intentionally. I would have called him Nancy Boy, but Patty sounds better.
“Clearly, the framers placed the right to bear arms within the context of organized military service.”
Really? Then why didn’t the government disarm the citizenry when the Constitution was ratified ? I love when these libtards try to think, they just reveal how retarded they are.
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