Guns: An entitlement

It’s time to make the Second Amendment right to bear arms an entitlement right.

When there is something close to a one-to-one match of a gun to a United States citizen as there is now, and yet a large double-digit percentage of Americans do not have a gun, then there must be a progressive redistribution of resources to allow those of us without guns to protect ourselves. The only way to do that is to make possession of a gun an entitlement — everyone must have one as a human birthright.

Every U.S. citizen will be issued, along with a Social Security number early in life, a concealable handgun. It will be a basic short-barreled revolver or small short-recoil automatic so that small hands will be able to fire it.

Instruction in its use will be assigned to parents or guardians, along with the obligation to provide other basic schooling — public, private or home-schooled. The government will require some proof of gun competence on a government-certified range by the age of 16. At 18, if the individual has had no prior criminal record linked to the government-issue handgun, the government will provide the option to receive, without cost, an upgrade to an assault-style rifle.

Within a generation, the principle of MAD — mutually assured destruction — that has kept us all safe these many years with respect to nuclear weapons will finally keep us all safe in our ordinary lives.

I await the National Rifle Association’s vigorous advocacy for this entitlement right.

Alan White Manitowoc