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My 2 Cents

This Week:
Response to The Columbus Dispatch's call for more gun control

I don't know why I waste my time writing letters to the editor. A lot of effort by various people around the country goes into educating people on the truth about firearms and gun control, then Bill Clinton and the Columbus Dispatch come along and make us have to start over. We like to point out how, despite the actions of a few criminals, firearms are used to prevent crime an estimated 1,965,000 more times each year than they are used to commit crime. And about how the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which the editors of the Dispatch so carelessly disregard, has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with protecting one's family from criminals, whether they be on the street or in the Capitol.

When the British Government imposed the Stamp Act, the Colonists responded by dumping tea into Boston Harbor. When they came for the guns at Lexington, the colonists responded by shooting back.

In 1776, an average citizen was able to own the exact same weapon as the average soldier. They did not generally have access to artillery and heavy weapons. Up until 1934, the same was true. Dough Boys returning from WWI brought home all sorts of fully automatic rifles, and in many cases, were permitted to keep their own guns used in the fighting. Nobody gave it a second thought. When the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed, something these folks had been doing all their lives was suddenly illegal (without a difficult-to-obtain federal permit). The abomination known as the Gun Control Act of 1968 expanded on NFA'34 and this is where the absurd notion of a "legitimate sporting purpose" comes from.

These laws and the subsequent laws and executive orders based on them are all blatantly unconstitutional. I have no doubt that if someone would bring such a case before the Supreme Court, these laws would be overturned unanimously. The Founding Fathers, according to the Dispatch, did not envision us having rapid-fire military weapons. I disagree. I think they could not have envisioned a government so hell-bent on disarming the public and trampling our rights, and a media so eager to go along. Or maybe they did. Just maybe, that is why we HAVE the Second Amendment in the first place.

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