Gun rights should be linked to service of country
“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.”
No court, judge or professor of law has had the willingness to say that there is a direct connection, a nexus, between the right to keep and bear arms and a well-regulated militia. These are not two separate and distinct rights, duties or obligations.
The right to bear arms is not a standalone right, but a right connected to, and made part of, a distinct obligation. At the time the founders of our nation chose to amend the Constitution, the maintaining of a free state by a well-regulated militia necessitated giving the people the right to keep and bear arms. It did not give them this right for any other reason.
If one wishes to strictly interpret the amendment and give the words their meaning as they were meant by those who wrote them, then let everyone who keeps and bear arms, be a member of a well-regulated militia. Since the closest thing that we have today to a militia is a state National Guard or Reserve Unit, let every owner of a gun become a member of the state National Guard or the Reserves in the state in which they reside. They then will become obligated to register their weapon with their Guard or Reserve unit, attend classes and practice gun safety.
At the time of the writing of the Second Amendment, no firearms existed other than pistols and rifles. No enhancement, no modification, no multiple bullet magazines; bear arms as the arms were borne when the amendment was written with the understanding that improvements in the quality and nature of pistols and rifles have been made over the years.
Enhanced assault weaponry belongs only in the hands of the military, the police and other law enforcement whose job it is to see that the meaning of the Second Amendment is adhered to. No weapons in the hands of the mentally handicapped. The hunting season, target practice and any other honest, practical and useful use of the weaponry can be licensed and controlled. No private sales of weapons. Anyone found in possession of an unregistered weapon is immediately sentenced to five years in prison. Anyone committing a crime with a weapon, whether registered or not, 10 years added to the sentence for the commission of the crime.
There is now talk of doing away with the Second Amendment. Perhaps an amendment is in order so as to bring it in line with 21st century thinking and practice. But, again, I look to the courts, to the scholars and to the legislators who have jurisdiction over this matter.
I’m not some wild-eyed liberal looking to restrict the rights of members of the NRA. When it was my time to serve, I was able to field strip and clean my M-1 in a pup tent by candlelight. I am an independent voter, conservative in my beliefs, disagree with President Donald Trump as to his interpretation of the Second Amendment but fully support him on his accomplishments as president. Let us stop arguing while children are dying, while concertgoers are being slaughtered and while churches are being fired upon. Economics cannot be the only thing that governs us. Sometimes, doing the right thing is more important.