New World Arms Rights

Independent thinkers such as Jesus, Ghandi, Newton, Einstein, Rousseau and the authors of the Declaration of Independence have altered the way people have viewed the world and have each developed vast populations of followers. Fortunately, we don’t live under a Communist dictatorship that punishes independent thought contrary to the purposes of the ruling regime or that condemns anyone who strays from group approved identification and philosophical beliefs. We all have the freedom to express and share our beliefs and opinions.   With the protection of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and as a result of the wars fought to allow us to do so, we have the freedom to express opinions on any issue and the freedom of press.

	In response to the paragraph on the right to bear arms (in a previously sent email) several inferences were made and unexpressed opinions were assumed to what was essentially a semantic exploration of the interpretation of Amendment II of the U.S. Constitution (which, by the way, is referring to militias rather than individuals.  Here is the text of the second amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”), in particular the meaning of the word “Arms”.  Never did I say that no one should be allowed to have guns.  What I did say was that if someone were to resist the government militarily, then  “Arms” would need to include what the federal government has, such as bombs, missiles, etc. The Second Amendment concerns the equipping of a military militia for the security of a free State in order to not allow a dictatorship, etc.  My point was that if there were ever a revolt to overtake or secede from the United States government, as in the Civil War, it would require a lot more than pistols. Guns are of no military threat to the Federal government.   Someone would either have seize the military creating a military government or stockpile weapons of equal military proportions or get the assistance of nuclear powers such as Great Britain, Russia, China, India, or Pakistan all of which would never happen. 

As Thomas Jefferson said, "On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."  You will notice he refers to a “probable” meaning, which means something may or may not have a particular meaning.  Also the time in which the Constitution was written was technologically very different from nowadays.  They had no idea we would have telephones, computers, televisions, rockets, airplanes, cars, etc.  During their time, guns might have had an effect to resist government oppression, but not in  the world of today.

People enjoy holding on to their romantic image of the past, resisting change and resisting growing into the future.  I think horses are fine animals that were once used for transportation but for that function they have been replaced by cars.  Typewriters have been replaced by word processors.  The fact of the matter is that in a war in today’s technology, guns are as backward as bows and arrows.   A sad realization to many gun aficionados is that guns are obsolete.  A consolation is that they can be used for sport or collected as works of art.

In today’s world and technology, if any real wars are to be waged they would be fought at great distances using weapons of mass destruction with missiles using biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons which would have the potential to exterminate most, if not all, human, animal, and plant life (the good news is that bacteria would survive to evolve into new life forms).   In such a war, guns would be of no use since the intended physical or conceptual target would be beyond the reach of any bullet’s trajectory.                                                     RB