Guns, Guns, Guns
First off: I am not an anti-gun extremeist. I don't think that we ought not to have the right to own guns. I do think that there is no reason not to have restrictions, especially when it comes to the larger military-style weapons. (No one needs hand grenades or anti-personnel mines, or assault weapons, for that matter, or if they do, it's probably for some basically very bad reasons.) But, for good or ill, this is what it says:
"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."
It says we are to have the right to keep and bear arms in order to serve as our state's militia. Boom. Like that. That's it. That's all. It does not say that we have the right to keep guns in our homes for defense against fellow Americans. It simply doesn't say that. In order to make it say that you have to read it thusly:
" . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Notice the missing comma? Sorry. In order for this to be a literal right to own guns, the comma has to go. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise.
What we need is a new amendment. (Full disclosure: this is my wife's suggestion.) Something that spells out, in no uncertain terms, what our gun rights are, up to and including when we lose them. (Like after violent felony convictions. Or after shooting your neighbor's tires out. That sort of thing.) I don't really want to own a gun. Mainly I want something that will make it less likely for me to want to say, six to twelve times a year (depending on political cycles), "Sorry, asshole. You're wrong."
"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."
It says we are to have the right to keep and bear arms in order to serve as our state's militia. Boom. Like that. That's it. That's all. It does not say that we have the right to keep guns in our homes for defense against fellow Americans. It simply doesn't say that. In order to make it say that you have to read it thusly:
" . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Notice the missing comma? Sorry. In order for this to be a literal right to own guns, the comma has to go. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise.
What we need is a new amendment. (Full disclosure: this is my wife's suggestion.) Something that spells out, in no uncertain terms, what our gun rights are, up to and including when we lose them. (Like after violent felony convictions. Or after shooting your neighbor's tires out. That sort of thing.) I don't really want to own a gun. Mainly I want something that will make it less likely for me to want to say, six to twelve times a year (depending on political cycles), "Sorry, asshole. You're wrong."
Labels: Bile, Literacy, Self-Defense
posted by Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer at 8:40 AM
1 Comments:
My favorite bit of gun-nuttery lately has been the movement to eliminate restrictions on carrying on college campuses. In response to the Virginia Tech shooting, there've been proposals floated in several states. Faculty have been vilified for resisting these proposals (you know, the radical fringe anti-gun wacko faculty), which is strange because it would be the faculty (and other campus officials) who would be expected to bring their peace-keepers to class. (Of course, I never walk into a classroom without a Bowie knife, taser, mace andpepper spray, and a copy of Prolegmona to Any Future Metaphysics.)
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