Lawyers arguing for the District of Columbia to forego its ban on handguns have made the most extraordinary claim. To quote from a Washington Post article of February 5th: "No doubt or ambiguities arise from the words ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", the brief contends. "The words cannot be rendered meaningless by resort to their preamble."
In other words, to hell with the actual language, the context doesn’t matter. You can take a section out of any sentence or paragraph regardless and say it is the law as you please, without regard to the meaning that surrounds it. These people dearly wish that reference to the militia had never been put into the Second Amendment, and are now saying it is meaningless.
1. It is not meaningless. It was written at a time when there was no organized standing army, and when ordinary citizens might be required to defend their States in a "well ordered militia". Time has moved on, guys! Duh!
2. A civilized city cannot afford to have its citizens walk or drive around armed to the teeth. There are enough accidental and deliberate gun deaths already in the US (29,000 p.a). But I guess if you are subbed by the arms industry……
3. Carrying a gun does not enable the preservation of one’s life. Quite the contrary. I don’t for a moment believe the paid-for "research" that says that cities where everyone can carry a gun are more "safe" than elsewhere.
The population of DC is around 550,000. 550,000 more gun sales, this is what this case is about. And they talk about family values! It gives a new meaning to the word "irresponsible".
Epicurus would be appalled. To hunt is one thing – – he would have had no objection to that. But carrying about loaded guns in a busy modern city? Ever thought about the assassinations for a start (which was probably in the minds of those who enacted the ban)?
Of course it is possible to change the Constitution, although not easily . But this issue does illustrate the dangers of slavish, religious adherence to a 200 year document in the face of unprecedented change, a hugely expanded population and the modern presence of an enormous standing army and well-armed militia (albeit under strain from the Iraq war, but that is irrelevant to the argument). Other countries do things with more common sense.
Last time I looked if the colonists had not been armed we would never have got our freedom from British tyranny.
Believe it or not, Charlie, there are people who wish the British were better armed so that they could return the compliment. Never have I seen the American government (not, please not, the American people) so deeply unpopular. How could your folks have done such a through job of alienating an ally?
Weren’t you talking about pistols, automatics and personal machine guns for the nervous?
Sorry, you’re right!
I’d like to point out that there is a gun of some sort for every man, woman and child in the United States. No candidate has even, or dare even, mention it. Along with Israel/Palestine it is the subject that no one dare go near, illustrating that if you have an organization that is fanatical, inflexible enough and can raise enough money to police the media, you can prevent intelligent debate about anything, however insupportable. It rather makes a pig’s ear out of the claims about free speech and democracy, but then we cannot expect consistency, can we?