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.
I had similar thoughts. He’s likely gay and confused.
And I’ll bet he spends his evenings in New Hope (for those who don’t know New Hope PA is noted for it’s flamboyant types).
Agreed
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.
Yes, and with my car at 55 MPH I can cross the yellow line and cause a most horrific tragedy. But it doesn’t happen because we trust one another to stay on their side of the line. Not withstanding the second amendment and I’m not trying to compare driving a car to owning a firearm. One is a privilege and one is a right.
I’m just taking about trust and the ability to cause tragedy. I trust my fellow citizens to own and to “bear” arms. I feel a hell of a lot safer at a gun show than I do at most any inner city back alley. The difference is between the good guys being armed and the bad guys.
The author apparently doesn’t know the difference.
I notice the sory shit never held a command. Hmmm?
Note his point about dispatching a dozen executives in a board room with a single clip in his Glock--wrong; if any single one of these executives is armed, Walsh is lucky to get off the second shot.
What people like that forget, or never knew, is that the definition of a militia at the time of the writing of the constitution, and the bill of rights, was every able body man between the age of 16 and 65. That included everyone, so the right was an individual right and still is. Militias weren’t for fighting foreign troops but for fighting our government. The words “a well regulated milita being necessary to the security of a free state” spells out exactly what the right to keep and bear arms is about. That is defending your country against a take over by the government. Couldn’t be more clear that the right is an individual right, not a collective.
“56 million people murdered by their own governments in the 20th century.”
Wow is that a conservative estimate.
Probably ROTC. A four year commitment after graduation.
I disagree. They're always telling you that, but I don't buy it. I think driving is a right, but running into other people or their property while you're doing it is not. I'm not saying that's the way the law's written, I'm saying that's the way it's really supposed to be. Can you imagine in the horse and buggy days if they tried to require a license to ride a horse or drive a buggy or wagon? People would have laughed their asses off. What's a car but an functional evolution of those "technologies"?
Really ironic that an “English” Master doesn’t know the difference between a prefatory and an operative clause.
Gun cancer? What is that, rust?
And politicians.
Ditch yours first, Paddy. Then take out an ad in the local paper to say you've done it.
And I don't feel that great about someone who lists Lolita as one of his favorite books.
There would be if we could somehow magically make guns disappear. Guns, axes, baseball bats and Bowie knives are just tools. Someone intent on committing violence will find a way, and liberal morons will continue to to believe that they can eliminate this behavior by banning inanimate objects.
Eventually, we'll get down to rocks. Then what?
“I fired everything from 9mm pistols to .50-caliber machine guns, routinely qualifying as “expert” with an M16A2 rifle.”
Probably soiled himself every time he did, too.
And, in what context do you see the right of free speech? Why is it always THIS amendment that has strings attached to it? Because YOU don't like it, sissy boy?
Tired, old retread of a bankrupt argument. At least
one other poster has referred to the Federalist Pa-
pers. I will go a step further. Refer to Federalist
#46 approximately paragraph nine.
Written by James Madison, deemed ‘Father ot the
Constitution’, this particular article was writ-
ten to show that local governments can balance
the power of the federal government. He GLOATS
at the fact that the American citizens are armed
and states that if European citizens had arms
they would throw off the yoke of their
oppressive governments.
Read it and weep gun takers everywhere.
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