Does the NRA really defend the Second Amendment? | Opinion – Main Street Nashville

To the Editor:

According to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." The word, Arms, is deliberately capitalized, a common practice at the time used for emphasis. Since Thomas Jefferson and many others owned private cannons, the largest weapon available to them, Arms, to the framers clearly meant more than just small arms one can easily "bear".

The word, gun, is found nowhere in the Constitution, a carefully crafted document. According to the preamble, one of the main purposes of government is to "insure domestic Tranquility," also capitalized. To correctly interpret the intentions of the framers, everything following the preamble, including the 10 original amendments, must be weighed in light of the Constitution's stated purpose.

At the time the Second Amendment was drafted, there was no federal army, no national guard and no organized police force, a fact of history ignored by the modern National Rifle Association's absurd position, which used to be far less radical than today. There were also no large urban populations or police protecting them, gravely endangered by modern assault weapons. And, who knows what horrific Arms may be contained in a future brief case or even smaller space?

For many years, the NRA and mainstream media were guilty of drawing a nonexistent, artificial line down the center of the Second Amendment, limiting the debate to gun ownership. To insist this amendment permits unlimited ownership of modern assault weapons, is no more constitutionally rational than to claim it allows for unlimited private ownership of bombs, chemical weapons and space-ray machines, modern Arms unknown to the American founders.

Based on the NRA's narrow-minded interpretation, we have just as much right to own private nuclear bombs and bio-weapons as we do to own a multi-round handgun, none of which existed in the 18th century. If we wish to have a society at all, then the 21st century question is not if we are going to restrict private Arms ownership but rather, in what manner are we going to restrict it.

For the record, if anyone has the right to argue in favor of restricting the ownership of assault weapons, it's survivors of far too many mass shootings. As America's founders wisely allowed for, we can always amend what the Constitution says. A perhaps better and much saner idea would be to amend the NRA, by convincing a reluctant media to point out it's highly deceptive and historically irrational position.

The NRA has no constitutional or other right to limit the Second Amendment to a debate over guns, or to ignore the intentions of America's founders clearly stated in the preamble: To insure domestic Tranquility. For a constitutional position to be correct, it must fall within this clearly stated purpose.

Are politicians and American media really honest and fair in regard to what the Second Amendment and the rest of the Constitution actually says? Does the NRA really defend the Second Amendment? You decide.

Richard Aberdeen

Hermitage

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Does the NRA really defend the Second Amendment? | Opinion - Main Street Nashville