OK. So here we are, back in CO and a gun owner decides to kill a bunch of people and in the process also booby traps his apartment so that more people may die in addition to the ones he shot in the theater.
As usual, gun nuts responded with the usual drivel about the shooting would not have been so bad had, in the words of one Texas congressman, "everyone had been packing in the theater." Typically, there is no mention of the fact that automatic weapons, assault rifles, were used in the attack. There is a reason why these weapons are called assault weapons: they are made for the military to assault other armies that also have assault rifles. These are not sporting or hunting weapons; rather, they are weapons specifically designed to provide overwhelming fire power in a combat situation.
There is absolutely no justification for any private citizen to own such a weapon. If one is a hunter, than a rifle or a shotgun is reasonable. For home protection, maybe a handgun kept in the home is fine. What is not fine, is that anyone can buy these military weapons at any time and go on a rampage. The Second Amendment does state that a well armed militia is essential for national defense. It does not say that every person is entitled to posses weapons of mass killing power.
The right to bear arms is fine in context. Had the authors of the Constitution seen what egregious and offensive deeds were done using this amendment as justification, they would most likely be horrified. When the amendment was written America was a frontier country with no real standing army. The idea of having arms for protection and in the event of a foreign invasion made sense at the time.
We are no longer living in a frontier country and are in no danger of foreign invasion. The purpose of the amendment has all but disappeared. However, it is still valid but should not be a license to kill.
The sale of such military weapons needs to be outlawed. Weapons classified for military or law enforcement bodies should not be made available to the general populace. Again, I am not talking about weapons for individual hunting or in home protection. We have gone so far overboard in the crazy extension of the Second Amendment, someone for the NRA could probably make a case for every citizen having tactical nuclear weapons or stocks of biological or chemical weapons.
I find it interesting that the folks who defend this profligate ownership of military weapons say they are adherents to the strict meaning of the Constitution, with Scalia actually saying he has an 18th century dictionary next to him when deciding constitutional questions. Yet clearly, "arms" at the time the Constitution was written referred only to muzzle loading rifles and pistols. Clearly, these are the only weapons the founders had in mind when writing the second amendment and could be the basis for weapon ownership now.
But unlike the gun nuts, I feel this is defeating the spirit, but not the literal meaning of the amendment. Times change and interpretations of the Constitution change as to what each amendment actually means in a contemporary context. The obstinate and ill considered position that all Americans are entitled to any and all weapons in the world is ludicrous and society needs to be nuanced in what the Second Amendment says.
Or, is it OK for the Supreme Court to state that only single shot muzzle loading weapons are the only ones protected by the second amendment?
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