Is our national love for guns, and the second amendment, making us unsafe?

For the love of guns

Recently, an apparently heinous plot to harm American soldiers was thwarted by a quick thinking, assumedly patriotic, store clerk.

As reported, the would-be terrorists had run afoul of their own VCR. We don’t know exactly why the terrorists thought it was important to transfer the VCR tape to DVD. Perhaps one of their little terrorists stuck a peanut butter sandwich into the VCR machine like mine did. Maybe they heard that there was a gag reel they were missing that was only on the DVD version of “Making the most of your Jihad.”

What is clear, is that they didn’t think that anyone was paying attention to them.

Maybe they thought this because when they were out in the woods having a festival shooting up pie plates with semi-automatic rifles, no one said a word.

That worries me. I believe that regular-old American gun owners have the same dislike for terrorists as store clerks do, but the gun owners refuse to speak up. Why? For worship of the second amendment, that’s why.

Before I rattle on, let me say that I am a lover of the constitution, particularly of the amendment that repealed prohibition. I also have a very low interest in monitoring the lives or activities of anyone, by making laws. It’s all right with me if you drive without your seatbelt, without your headlights on in the rain, and after you’ve had three beers after a tough day at work. I don’t care if you smoke, where you stand on Roe V. Wade, and if you take the tags off of your mattresses. I also don’t care if you have a gun, or if you shoot animals with it. Even the cute ones.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the gun enthusiasts, who quote the second amendment as if it were a divine right, ought to consider their opinions, particularly in “today’s world.”

(By the way, Charlton Heston isn’t really Moses, and the second amendment was not included in the commandments.)

This is what the amendment says:

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.

Historians remind us that these words, part of the Bill of Rights, meant something fairly clear to the people of that time. The right was for the people to be prepared to overcome, or at least defend themselves, against a well-organized standing army. The memory of the British Army was still fresh, and there was a great deal of concern, particularly by those who strongly supported states rights, that the Federalist boys might bully the states. So, the idea of the well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, gave the local boys the right to hold on to their guns, and serve in a local armed force. An important fact here, is that when the militia called, you were expected to bring your own gun. This was contrary to the guns that the government would supply to paid soldiers in the national army that the constitution made allowances for.

It wasn’t about hunting, or target shooting; it was about not giving up your guns and becoming helpless. It was a part of the freedom pact that America was working so hard to create.

Also important to note is that guns at that time were slow to reload, and only marginally accurate, at least as compared to modern weaponry. Revolver pistols were decades away from their creation. In addition, guns were for serious business then, they were tools. Today they are more for sport, or for a collection.

Anyway, let me get to my point. The second amendment does not, with any sense of reasonableness, allow for anyone to have unlimited, rapid-firing, lethal tools of destruction such as are available today.

Furthermore, I don’t want hunters and collectors to give up their guns. It’s none of my business.

But maybe, if the gun enthusiasts would stop manipulating the constitution, then a half-dozen guys, with semi-automatic weapons, and no interest in hunting, who are shooting it up in the woods, would seem as conspicuously wrong as when they want to copy an instructional tape on killing American soldiers.

I simply cannot concede that those six men had right to bear arms, at least not the kinds of arms that they were caught bearing.

The person who thought that this training tape represented a potential problem, was just being reasonable.

I am grateful that he didn’t have the, “They can pry my DVD from my cold dead hands,” attitude.

Let’s be reasonable about who gets to have guns, and what kind they can have.

Actually, I am asking one more thing also. Let’s stop twisting the Constitution around to support our own wishes. We’re getting in our own way with it. Reasonable gun enthusiasts ought to be leading the way in ridding the availability of weapons that are meant only for war and destruction, rather than sport.