Okay, so I’m confused. Let’s review…
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads…
“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.”
As a student of English, I appreciate the specificity of the language – and the importance of punctuation. You can’t separate a parenthetical clause from the body of a sentence and reinterpret the meaning of the sentence to suit your ideology.
“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.”
The Framers — our esteemed Founding Fathers – were clearly concerned (fresh from a Revolutionary War against Britain) that we have a well-drilled local militia ready to take the field and battle against foreign aggressors. Citizen soldiers (the famous Minutemen) were therefore, armed, drilled, and prepared to face foreign armies.
But foreign invasion is simply NOT a concern today. (Unless it’s a Russian-style cyber invasion.)
So, why do we Americans allow civilians to own military-style semi-automatic weapons? (Automatic — if you factor in bump-stocks.) Are the NRA-loving folks armed with such high-powered weapons members of a “well regulated Militia?”
I think NOT.
So, given that Our Founders were Englishmen (or, at least, descendants of English speakers) versed in the King’s English, they could not have envisioned the situation we confront today: untold thousands of high-powered weapons in the hands of paranoid people who aren’t members of a “well regulated Militia.”
Sorry, Wayne LaPierre, I call your bullshit. And so do the student survivors of the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Like Australia – and all the other civilized countries in the world, we cannot accept mass shootings in our schools — or Country Music concerts — or anywhere else.
It’s time for effective gun control!
The Times They Are A Changin’…
Come gather ’round people
And accept it that soon
Come writers and critics
Come senators, congressmen
Come mothers and fathers
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown…
You’ll be drenched to the bone…
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again…
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin…
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall…
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
For the battle outside ragin’…
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand…
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command….
Your old road is
The line it is drawn
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
The curse it is cast
The slowest one now
Will later be fast…
As the present now
Will later be past…
The order is
Rapidly fadin’…
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
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Tagged as AR 15, Bob Dylan, Columbine, Gun control, gun deaths, March for our lives, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, NRA, Pulse Nightclub, Resist, Sandy Hook, The Times They Are A Changin', Vegas shooting