We owe it to our children to pass gun reform legislation

This week is my birthday. However, for years, I have not truly celebrated it. Similar to fellow Americans, I remain in a state of sadness. Two years ago, it was a knee to the neck of George Floyd. At the time, I wrote about the virus of racial violence and that disease has only metastasized.

Today, the lives of 19 children and two adults were taken by the uniquely American epidemic of gun violence. In 1791, the Second Amendment was ratified; however, this central tenet of the Bill of Rights was carefully authored by James Madison and debated for years beforehand.

According to Madisonian thought, a true constitutional balance of power entailed a “wellregulated” right to bear arms. The Republican Party defends the filibuster in the name of checks and balances, but will they defend the lives of children using identical logic?

This similarly constructed argument ought to protect the right of our government, and by extension the hearts, minds, and confidence of the American people, to intensely monitor the sale of guns in the United States, as it is part of our foundational framework. The filibuster is merely a relic of the Jim Crow South.

I implore our leaders to summon whatever intestinal fortitude they still possess to draft legislation demanding background checks, bans on firearms for domestic abusers and the mentally ill, and the plethora of commonsense reforms we must institute to honor Madison’s thoughtful and foresightful legacy.

We owe it to our children to pass comprehensive gun reform legislation.

Henry J.H. Wilson, Barrington