(2 minute, 30 second read)
Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through
the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.[1]
Justice Antonin Scalia
So much for what he thought.
All in
I am a strong supporter of the second amendment! The second amendment doesn’t need protection. It needs to be enacted. Especially the “well-regulated” part. As it stands right now the Trump Republican Party is using the second amendment to declare year-round open season on the population.
THE DEMS ARE COMING FOR OUR GUNS!!!
It’s the battle, and I do mean battle, cry of the Trump Republican Party. Up until now it has been the battle cry for a couple of decades for every piece of gun legislation proposed anywhere. Any law proposed means that the liberal socialist Democrats are coming for our guns.
Democrats also have guns. Socialists have guns. Muslims have guns. People of color have guns. Gangs have guns. Criminals have guns. The police have guns. The armed forces have guns. Children have guns. God’s children got guns. Those that aren’t God’s children got guns. Big guns. Little guns. Long guns. Short guns.
It’s a militarized America! It’s what the “Founding Fathers” wanted. Except they didn’t.
They didn’t envision a culture guided by guns.
Pretending
We’ve come a long way since the 1700s and muskets. Mass murders in schools, nightclubs, businesses, and churches weren’t happening then. It’s time that we stop pretending that the Christian founding fathers were gun nuts and envisioned where technology would take us regarding armaments available to the general population. A Civil War was fought. Slavery was finally abolished. Women got the vote. Women got rights. (Well considering where the Trump Supremes have taken us that isn’t as true as it used to be.) Children no longer work in mines. People of color finally got some civil rights. Progress was made. A few world wars have been fought. We’re in another one now. Change happens. Average citizens now have access to military firepower.
But even the founding fathers recognized the need for laws involving firearms. That’s why the second amendment called for a “well-regulated militia.” Laws provide that regulation. We need the rule of law to deal with the lawless society that the Trump Republican Party is creating where individuals are the law unto themselves. “America first” means “me first” to the MAGA heads.
They want a Putin country.
[1] DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html (The 2008 decision was a 5/4 Supreme Court decision.)