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Jan. 15, 2010 A recent anononymous comment on an internet message board, written by some macho right winger, stated that "the second amendment gave him the right to carry a concealed gun anywhere." The second amendment does no such thing. The second amendment is poorly worded and ambiguous. Let's examine this bit of bad writing. The second amendment states: "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." From the way this is written it is impossible to determine whether the founding fathers meant the right to bear arms was the right of the people as a group or as individuals. Most, if not all, early court cases involving the 2nd amendment, resulted in judgements declaring the 2nd amendment was a collective right, not an individual one. These rulings were based on the phrase from the amendment--"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..." Clearly, the framers of the constitution had state security in mind when they wrote and added this amendment to the constitution. Let's examine the history of this time period. When the constitution was first written, the U.S. was a young vulnerable country made up of 13 states that European powers, such as England, Spain, and France assumed would be conquered and made part of one of their empires. During the War of 1812, England even managed to burn Washington DC to the ground. The U.S. didn't have much of a federal standing army. If one of these great powers invaded U.S. territory in the late 18th century or early 19th century, it would have taken a long time just for this event to be communicated to the federal government. Then, it would've taken an even longer time for the federal government to fund and organize an army to protect its territory. Therefore, it was up to the states to muster up a defense in the meantime. Obviously, the main purpose of the 2nd amendment was to facilitate the defense of the nation from foreign attack, not from an imperious federal government. The constitution was designed for the federal government not to be imperious anyway, and the founding fathers never thought it necessary to give the right to bear arms to individuals for this purpose. Moreover, the idea that individuals with firearms could resist a strong federal government is preposterous. Probate records also debunk another myth about guns in America. There were fewer households per capita that had working guns when the second amendment was passed than there are today. The tradition that America was founded by gun-toting individuals is largely fiction. Now, politicians, cowed by the NRA, have managed to get right wing judges with bizarre legal opinions on the bench. And it's only in recent history (within the last 10 years) that the second amendment has been interpeted as an individual right to bear arms. The state legislature in Georgia, where I live, is planning on attempting to pass a law that would allow concealed weapons to be carried onto schools, college campuses, and in churches. Talk about insanity. Guns today are far different from what they were in the late 18th century. Back then, they had muskets that took several minutes to fire and didn't even work in inclement weather, besides being dangerous to the user because they often simply exploded in the shooter's hands. Today, there are automatic weapons that can massacre an entire room full of people.
There is nothing in the 2nd amendment that prohibits common sense gun control laws, and even if it did, the insanity that would imply should be ignored and tough gun control laws should be enacted.
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