The 2nd Amendment Means This to Me

I see the point for the 2nd Amendment at the time it was written. It was necessary for the survival of the United States and it's citizens but it was written a long time ago and things do change over time. I am not advocating that it be discarded as a U.S. citizen's right but how it should be put into practice.

What triggered this particular hub for me was the posting I saw on Facebook by members of the National Association for Gun Rights which depicted Washington, Jerfferson, Madison and Hamilton favouring the 2nd Amendment and Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Lenin and Hitler not favouring the same Amendment. On the surface it looks like the tyrants are wrong and the American forefathers are right.

There is no mention of the fact that there is close to 150 years difference in historical time to the two groups and weaponry development is significantly more developed for the second group. In Washington's time you could really only get flintlock pistols and rifles so most everyone was on an even playing field and they were single shot weapons. I don't know if the Roosevelts and Churchill were in favour of the 2nd Amendment but they were of the same time period of history of the second group mentioned by the gun rights group.

The important thing to understand in the latter timeframe is that weapon development now included rifles, handguns, submachine guns, machine guns, grenades and anti-tank weapons, just to name a few. The key difference over the flintocks is that a lot of the more modern weapons were capable of discharging multiple rounds and were capable of creating much more damage than the former older technology.

So the 2nd Amendment allowed for the right to bear arms (flintlocks). So does that mean I am advocating that a U.S. citizen should only be allowed to buy flintlocks for their protection? The answer is a simple no. Instead, it is more about the fact that gun buyers should be able to purchase single shot weapons in the spirit of the original document and owning anything else in not legal unless you are on duty with the police or armed forces.

But this is not my decision since I am a resident and citizen of your neighbour to the north--Canada. I am hoping that common sense will win out and a reasonable approach will evolve that will result in less violence because it is present everywhere now, not just in the United States. If things don't improve we will just end up using guns to kill one another instead of protecting each other which was the spirit of the 2nd Amendment. Let's use our heads and come up with a workable solution people. Too many innocent people have died because guns ended up in the wrong hands. Let's find a way to protect each other while still allowing those who wish to own guns do so but not at the expense of innocent lives. Park the emotional stance and take a logical approach to the survival of a way of life.