Uvalde and the Second Amendment – Daily Kos

June 24, 2022

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.

Of all the absurdities that we accept without question, basing the right to own an AR15 on the Second Amendment is the most brazenly far-fetched.

The man who gunned down those nineteen children and two educators at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24 of this year was not acting in concert with a well-regulated militia. He was acting as a madman inspired by an evil impulse to slaughter innocent children. And the police who answered the call waited outside for an hour, afraid to go in unwilling to risk their lives to an insane man armed with a modern killing machine.

We need to ask ourselves some common sense questions:

Heres a practical analogy regarding changing times:

In the early days of our nation, people traveled overland by horse-drawn carriages. There was no regulatory entity issuing licenses. The roads were not too crowded and drivers generally managed to avoid accidents. With the invention and refinement of the automobile, the roads became more congested and dangerous. Rules of the road were codified and drivers were required to apply for licensure based on knowledge and competence.

Similarly pragmatic reasoning must be applied to guns. The front-loading musket of Revolutionary War days is not equivalent to an AR15. It is not a gun in the Fourth Amendment sense of the word. No such mass-murder machine was even dreamed of in the days of our forefathers. And the murderer of the Uvalde children was not a member of a well-regulated militia. He was a madman with an AR15.

I am not recommending more stringent licensing for AR15s. We as citizens do not need these weapons. Their proliferation is neither dictated nor endorsed by the Second Amendment. The only real beneficiaries of their continued public sale are members of the gun industry.

When will the next mass shooting be? And why must it be? We can end this.

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Uvalde and the Second Amendment - Daily Kos