Gun Control in America – 50 Years of Shooting Blanks

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Gun Control in America – 50 Years of Shooting Blanks

By Eric Frost-Barnes

I love our nation, and I believe in the 2nd Amendment. I also believe in the 1st Amendment, as well as the 13th and 19th Amendments. Truth is, I’m a big fan of nearly all our Amendments, with the notable exception of that self-righteous 18th one (but since the 21st Amendment got it drunk and rolled it under our national porch, it’s remained relatively mellow). But I digress – back to focusing my sights on the 2nd Amendment. I firmly believe in an individual’s right to bear arms with that right being a vital aspect toward maintaining the security of a free state. And that is exactly what the 2nd Amendment says: “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.”

Personally, I think anyone debating gun control, regardless of their position, needs to fully understand exactly what the 2nd Amendment states. The words “well regulated” are right there at the very beginning, and the amendment ends with the final four words, “shall not be infringed.” The word “infringed” means violated, and given the fact the 2nd Amendment begins with the term “well regulated,” it seems more than safe to surmise that our nation’s Founding Fathers recognized that guns, much like government itself, should not be allowed to get out of control – for it would be the nation’s citizens who would likely suffer the most. I also believe it’s safe to say that history has repeatedly proven our Founding Fathers to be extremely intelligent, forward-thinking men. They weren’t only interested in their own rights and safety, but the rights and safety of future generations (except maybe for Founding Father Pierce Butler of South Carolina – 18th Century rumors have him painted as kind of a selfish tool).

This November marks the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy. It’s been half a century since he was murdered by a man with a rifle. And in between 1963 and the present, we’ve witnessed the fatal shootings of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X, as well as failed assassination attempts directed at Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, Alabama Governor George Wallace, and U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

· In that same fifty-year time span the American people have seen the horror of the University of Texas (1966) massacre that left 17 fellow citizens dead.

· We witnessed 21 Americans die at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California (1984), and another 14 innocent civilians die at a post office barely two years later (1986) in Edmond, Oklahoma.

· 23 more Americans died in a cafeteria shooting (1991) in Killeen, Texas.

· We watched as 13 students and teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Columbine High School (1999) in Littleton, Colorado.

· 32 students were shot to death at Virginia Tech (2007) in Blacksburg, Virginia.

· We witnessed two horrific shooting sprees (2009) where 13 innocent Americans died in each: first at an Immigration center in Binghamton, New York, and then again at a soldier readiness processing center in Fort Hood, Texas.

· Our nation grieved for 12 more Americans killed while watching a midnight movie at a theatre (2012) in Aurora, Colorado, as well as the terrible mass murder of 26 faculty and young children at Sandy Hook Elementary School (2012) in Newtown, Connecticut.

That final grim statistic of twenty-six Americans killed at Sandy Hook coincidentally matches the number of Constitutional Amendments dismissed and left for dead by your more wild-eyed vocal opponents of any kind of common-sense gun laws; even as those same zealots rant and rave about the sanctity of our Constitution when it comes to the absolute protection of their favorite Amendment: the 2nd. But again, I digress.

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