“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
We all know the words and every time we feel like some regulation is pinching a little too tightly we start talking like our freedoms are being infringed. Right now the whole issue of gun control is forefront in the discussions around the country. Let’s have a look.
We have a well-known, though not so well understood, right, under the second amendment, to “keep and bear arms.” Frankly, the very fact that we can’t agree on exactly what that second amendment right gives us is proof that our elected officials have failed us, and not just recently. Our legislators could have clarified our rights by having a debate on the subject, but they chose not to because the second amendment is one of those third rail issues in politics – if you touch it your political career will die.
We hear the NRA advocates telling us that any new regulation will put us out on that proverbial “slippery slope” toward the eventual loss of our right to “keep and bear” any form of weapon we chose to own. Wait a minute! Our right is guaranteed under the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States. For us to lose that right the Constitution would have to be further amended and that means the ratification process would kick in, and we would all have a voice in that process through our State governments. Maybe the slope isn’t as slippery as we are being told.
If the ideologues would simply park their ideology at the door and engage in the conversation in a constructive way, just maybe we could come up with some good ideas. Just maybe we could “keep and bear arms” and still enforce some new steps that would make it harder for the bad guys who want guns to get them. We won’t stop all the killing, but we might be able to slow it down. Who doesn’t support that?
The Sausage Grinder is Broken – will you help to fix it?
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