Monday, March 24, 2008

Guns, guns, GUNS!

This week, the supreme court was asked to consider whether or not the Washington D.C. handgun ban should be allowed to stand.

The reason for this was because the 2nd amendment of the United States Constitution states that Americans should be allowed to keep and bear arms. Arms, as in firearms.

It also states that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. It states this before stating that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

May I say at this point that the terms "well-regulated" and "militia" do not belong in the same sentence.

May I also say that the first definition of "militia" is this: "a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full time only in emergencies."

By its very definition, a body of "citizens" enrolled for military service and serving time only in emergency it the exact opposite of "well-regulated".

Militia can NEVER be described as "well-regulated".

So that argument goes RIGHT out the window.

As such, the right to bear any type of "arms" is never guaranteed.

The right to bear a weapon that can empty a 100 round clip of ammunition before you can SAY the words "100 round clip of ammunition" is NOT a right the founding fathers considered.

The right to bear a weapon that was developed in the former Soviet Union as a weapon that could help 10 Russian soldiers standing side by side defeat a regiment of Nazi soldiers that outnumbered them 20 to 1 was NEVER considered when this amendment was enacted.

And the right that enabled a small-time criminal to bear a weapon that was NOT illegal at the time to have the ability rob a minimum wage gas station attendant was NOT foreseen by the framers of the Constitution.

In case you were wondering, that last example comes from personal experience.

I've been robbed at gunpoint. Just in case anyone wondered.

I was a strong supporter of gun rights. Right up until I was robbed by someone who held a gun that was not illegal under the laws of the time.

I wasn't the only one robbed by this man. He held up a friend of mine. about 2 days before he robbed me.

By the way, he was never caught.

Cops at the time believed he was doing it to support a drug habit. So I can take some comfort in the fact that he's probably dead of an overdose by now.

Which gives me no comfort.

Y'see, he obtained this gun (which probably didn't work) with absolutely no legal obstacles.

Because what few obstacles there are to owning guns in this country are marginal at best.

And the Supreme Court that is in existence today WILL vote to remove any that exist.

DUCK!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry to hear you had to go through that. owning guns sounds appealing until you find out that the people you're trying to protect yourself from will have easier access to guns too. I hope you're doing better having survived that. It might interest you to know that there is this new documentary series "I Survived" on the Biography Channel on Mondays @ 9pm ET. It features real-life survivors from all walks of life. I work for Bio so I got to preview some episodes and saw one where this woman got kidnapped from her home,raped and then shot. And you hear her narrate how she survived the entire time! It's really inspirational. If you want to find out more about the show or preview some clips you can at http://www.biography.com/isurvived/ . Do you think you'll tune in?