Gun Control is Constitutional

- by Mojo (VA)

It's too bad the NRA and tea party types have hijacked the debate on gun control. How many of you reading this think the U.S. Constitution supports the NRA on gun control?

Probably most of you. After all, they constantly talk about the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

And, indeed it does. BUT, somehow the predicate clause is left out of the discussion. Here's the full text of the 2d Amendment to the United States Constitution:

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.

Notice the first part of the sentence? "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state...."

So, the point of the Second Amendment obviously is to allow people to bear arms as part of a well regulated militia in order to protect the security of the state (i.e. government).

Can you believe that? Somehow, all of that gets left out of the discussion and everyone thinks the constitution simply says people should be able to have guns without restriction.

In reality, specifically written into the Constitution's discussion of guns is the requirement that the guns be used to support a "well regulated militia" to protect the "state."

If the NRA (and the gun lobby) was honest, they would have to say the Constitution as currently written does not support their vision of a world in which everyone has unrestricted access to whatever guns they want. They would have to admit that they need to change the constitution to eliminate the first clause of the 2d Amendment. The words "regulated" "militia" and "state" just don't fit with what the gun laws the gun lobby supports.

The truth is the 2d Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has been stretched to the breaking point by the gun lobby as almost no one who owns a gun today has anything to do with a well regulated militia that is supporting the state.

Bottom line is that gun control is simply a very constitutional thing. Unrestricted gun rights, as currently advocated by much of the gun lobby, is unconstitutional.

Sadly, that's a surprise to most people. Maybe even to some judges.