Category Archives: Second Amendment

Local Second Amendment activist James Everard is organizing a counter-protest to the Bell County Democrats March for our lives anti-gun violence event.

The anti-gun violence event will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Killeen Community Center Park, 2201 E. Veterans Blvd, while the counter-protest is planned for 11 a.m. at the same location.

Everard said Thursday that his event, called Protect Gun Rights Killeen, is meant to educate residents on gun control and to present an alternate view on what Killeen can do to protect the community from gun-related crimes.

I know why shes doing this, Everard said of Harker Heights Councilwoman and Bell County Democratic Part chairwoman Lynda Nash. She wants to make our community safer, but I dont think she has the firmest grasp of gun laws and firearms technology.

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2nd Amendment activist organizing counter-protest in Killeen - The Killeen Daily Herald

Anthony Akubue| St. Cloud

The tragedy of mass shooting and killing of innocent children and adults has become a regular occurrence and increasingly becoming what our country is associated with worldwide. With each mass shooting that occurs, there is this display of simulated acrimonious debates in the U.S. Senate and House, which then peters out to naught until the next mass shooting. Whither is the beacon of democracy bound and are our politicians purposely dividing our great nation and complicit in the erosion of Abraham Lincolns government of the people, by the people, for the people?

It seems that we the ordinary citizens have become the unsuspecting dupes of politicians whose priority is to retain power. What is it about reasonable gun control that defies understanding? What are the real reasons politicians are enabling us to arm ourselves to the teeth with combat-style assault rifles? This recklessness and irresponsibility conjures up the specter of something calamitous in the offing. Sadly, I see our great country on a trajectory of self-implosion because we insist on hating and detest peaceful coexistence with each other. It does seem we would rather perish together as fools than learn to live together as brother and sisters.

President Eisenhower warned that …we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex; noting that The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

President Reagan remarked that there is no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying a loaded weapon. He also observed that politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession, but added that he has come to realize that it now bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Why are our politicians condoning citizens perambulating the streets with combat-type assault rifles? Is it because it is constitutional? Is it what the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is all about? The Second Amendment says that A well-regulated militiabeing necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Me and my ignorant self, I dont even know what that statement means; however, I think I know what it doesnt mean in todays reality. It doesnt mean granting private citizens/civilians the same privilege to keep and bear combat-type assault rifles as our men and women in the armed forces protecting and defending our country and citizens against foreign aggression and invasion.

Ours is not a milieu requiring us to be at alert and on guard because the British are coming. Today, one would correctly interpret the people in the Second Amendment as the men and women of the United States armed forces. Of course, the Second Amendment grants our civilian populace the right to keep and bear firearms, but not the AK-47 combat rifles and their ilk. I can imagine the people keeping and bearing muskets in the 18th century, the type Eli Whitney assembled in minutes before Congress with standardized interchangeable parts. These are not automatic or semiautomatic rifles owned by citizens in that era.

How is the man who first shoots his grandmother and then proceeds to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, with an AR-15 rifle to kill 19 children, two adults, and wounding others on May 24, 2022, defending himself or his home? AR-15 is definitely not Eli Whitneys musket.

The scary thing is that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing, not decreasing. The mass shooting on South Street in Philadelphia Saturday, June 5, 2022, which killed three people and inflicting 11 with major injuries, was the ninth mass shooting in the city of Philadelphia this year already. The worse thing is that it appears we are becoming numb to gruesome cases of mass shooting in our country as political charlatans and demagogues spew incendiary speeches that divide us.

We may choose to hate and detest peaceful co-existence with each other, but like it or not, we are stuck together for the long haul. I dont know why Frank Leahy remarked that egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity, but may God help us all!

This is the opinion of St. Cloud residentAnthonyAkubue. Submit a Your Turn of your own by emailing it to columns@stcloudtimes.com.

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Your Turn: This can't be what the founders had in mind - SC Times

Washington As lawmakers at the state and federal level mount renewed efforts to enact stricter gun control laws in response to the latest mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the Supreme Court is poised to issue its most significant Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.

The decision from the high court in a dispute over New York's stringent licensing regime for carrying concealed handguns outside the home could come as soon as next week, setting it against the backdrop of two mass shootings in a span of 10 days that shocked the nation the first, a racist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, that left10 dead; the second at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas where 19 students and two teachers were killed.

New York's rules require a resident seeking a license to carry a firearm outside the home to demonstrate a "proper cause" to obtain one, which state courts have said is a "special need for self-protection." Challengers to the law argue the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms outside the home for self defense, while supporters warn invalidating the restrictions could lead to more firearms on the streets.

Following oral arguments in November in the case, known as New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a majority of the court appeared poised to invalidate the New York law, though the scope of a forthcoming decision on the right to carry outside the home remains unclear.

Joseph Blocher, a law professor at Duke University and co-director of its Center for Firearms Law, said it's unlikely the Supreme Court finds all permit requirements for public carry of handguns to be unconstitutional, which would be a sweeping decision mandating nationwide permitless carry. Instead, the high court could strike down the New York law on the grounds it is too strict or gives too much discretion to state licensing officials.

Either way, Blocher predicted that a decision from the Supreme Court to invalidate New York's rules could prompt states to shift their focus to new restrictions that prohibit firearms in sensitive spaces, such as in bars.

The prospect of location-specific restrictions on public carry was an issue raised by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in November, as they questioned whether a city or state could ban guns on university campuses, in football stadiums or in Times Square. Justice Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan, meanwhile, questioned the potential for varying degrees of regulation based on the density of the population.

"It seems completely intuitive that there should be different gun regimes in New York than in Wyoming or that there should be different gun regimes in New York City than in rural counties upstate," Kagan said. "But it's a hard thing to make with our notion of constitutional rights generally."

Blocher, though, noted that throughout the nation's history, guns have been regulated more in urban areas than in rural places.

"Rules about permit requirements or open carry and the kinds of guns people possess might be tailored to the communities where they're being used," he said, adding that Thomas appeared open to the notion that the "urban-rural divide could play a role in charting the boundaries of the Second Amendment going forward."

The New York case is the most significant involving gun rights that the justices have heard since 2008, when the high court ruled the Second Amendment protects the right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense, and in 2010, when the court said the right applies to the states.

Writing for the majority in 2008's Heller v. District of Columbia, which involved D.C.'s handgun ban, Justice Antonin Scalia noted a rise in handgun violence nationwide and said the Constitution leaves the government a "variety of tools for combatting that problem, including some measures regulating handguns," but the court provided little guidance as to what gun restrictions are constitutionally permissible.

Since then, the 2008 decision is often cited by both sides of the gun control debate as a reason against enacting new firearms regulations and as the reason why gun violence has continued to rise in the U.S.

Nelson Lund, a law professor at George Mason University who is an expert on the Second Amendment, said the forthcoming ruling in the New York legal fight could allow the court to clear up uncertainties left after the Heller decision.

"There are so many questions left unanswered by Heller, and ever since that case was decided in 2008, people have been arguing about what it implies," he said. "You can make arguments on both sides because Heller was written in a way that allowed people to do that."

Lund noted that a decision from the high court voiding New York's concealed-carry licensing framework could jeopardize regimes in other states at least six allow a person to carry a firearm in public only if they demonstrate a need to do so though that raises the question of what law then could replace those rules.

"They could write an opinion that basically has very little effect beyond invalidating this particular statute, or they could also write an opinion that gives a lot of guidance about how far state and local governments may go," he said.

Amid the wait for the Supreme Court's decision in the challenge to New York's limits, the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have spurned new attempts by elected officials at the state and federal levels to change laws to curb gun violence.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the state "must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence" and requested state legislative leaders convene special legislative committees to develop recommendations on issues to prevent future school shootings, including mental health and gun safety.

And in Congress, a bipartisan group of senators has been meeting this week to find common ground on new firearms laws.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement Wednesday that he and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, are working through details of a measure focusing on "red flag" laws, which allow courts to order the confiscation of firearms from those threatening to harm themselves or others. He is also discussing with senators a plan for the safe storage of firearms.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who is also involved in gun control talks, said negotiators are "making rapid progress toward a common sense package" that could garner bipartisan support.

The House Judiciary Committee is meeting to consider eight different gun control measures that together will be packaged as the "Protecting Our Kids Act" and taken up by the full House next week. Among the bills are plans to raise the minimum purchasing age for semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21, ban large-capacity magazines and establish requirements regulating the storage of firearms on residential facilities.

Any legislation that clears the House, though, must be able to garner 60 votes to advance in the evenly divided Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has blessed the attempt at bipartisan negotiations to reach consensus on laws to reduce gun violence, but he warned last week that the Senate will proceed with a vote on gun control legislation in the near future even if the talks fail.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said during an event in Kentucky on Wednesday that the discussions are meant to "see if we can find a way forward consistent with the Second Amendment that targets the problems."

But Blocher said the failure by Congress to enact new limits on firearms has more to do with politics than constitutional bounds.

"Politically, we are nowhere near the limits that the Supreme Court has set out. In Heller, the Supreme Court made clear that a potentially wide range of gun regulations are perfectly constitutional, and thus far we have for political reasons not taken advantage of that, whether it's expanded background checks or extreme-risk laws or other possibilities as well. The [New York] case could change that, but I expect the court will recognize gun rights and regulations can go hand-in-hand like they have for all of American history," he said. "The greatest obstacle to gun regulations in the United States is political, not judicial."

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Upcoming Supreme Court ruling in major Second Amendment case looms over calls for new gun laws - CBS News

What is the Second Amendment?

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. It states:

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.

Bill of Rights

The Second Amendment is one of 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively called the Bill of Rights. These amendments were written to protect individual Americans from tyrannical rule and include the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, religion and press, and the Seventh Amendment, which proclaims the right of a trial by jury in civil cases. Other rights include the right to due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

Historical perspective

When the Founding Fathers added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution in 1791, they wanted to protect individuals from potentially dangerous central and state governments. Most scholars say the Constitution might not have been ratified without the 10 amendments, as many Americans feared the power of a centralized government and military. Much of that fear stemmed from laws the British imposed in the lead-up to the American Revolution, including levying taxes that were deemed too high and depriving some colonists of the right to bear arms.

A well regulated Militia

Legal scholars have debated the Founding Fathers intentions with respect to the Second Amendment. Those who support gun control measures often argue that the Founders intentions was only for well-regulated forces authorized by state governments to have access to weapons, and not for all individuals to be able to bear arms. Those who oppose restrictions on gun rights say the Second Amendment protects the right of ordinary citizens to own weapons and argue that the Founders included the words a well-regulated militia as just one example of why citizens could be in need of arms.

What have courts said?

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects a persons right to own firearms unconnected to military service and allows them to use those weapons for lawful purposes, including self-defense. Courts have also upheld a range of laws that put some restrictions on gun ownership, including for reasons of age, prior criminal convictions and issues of mental health.

Gun culture

Thirty percent of all Americans own a gun, while 42% live in a household with a gun, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey. Guns have long been a part of the countrys history and culture from its days fighting the American Revolution and exploring the Wild West and continue to be an enduring part of life for many people. However, the right to self-defense, while long held in the country, has in recent decades started to come under question in the wake of numerous high-profile mass shootings and a rise of gun violence that has led to guns becoming the leading cause of death among children and teens.

Gun control

Because of the Second Amendment and Americas long history with gun ownership, the gun control debate in the country generally focuses not on questions of whether or not citizens have the right to bear arms, but over matters of who should have access to guns and which weapons should be legal. Even those questions have been difficult for politicians to come to agreement over, with Congress unable to act on the issue for more than a decade.

World comparisons

America has more guns per person than anywhere else in the world, according to a 2018 report by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organization. U.S. gun owners possess 393.3 million weapons, higher than the countrys population of 330 million, according to the report. The Small Arms Survey says India has the second-highest number of civilian-owned firearms, with 71.1 million for its population of 1.4 billion.

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What is the Second Amendment? - Voice of America - VOA News

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A Washington Post reporter argued on Tuesday that conservative groups reinterpreted the Second Amendment to claim individuals have a right to own a gun.

Staff writer Amber Phillips explained in an analysis titled "How the Second Amendment was reinterpreted to protect individual rights" that historians claim the amendments protection of individual gun rights is a "relatively recent reading" pushed by conservative groups rather than the text of the Second Amendment.

"The historical consensus is that, for most of American history, the amendment was understood to concern the use of guns in connection with militia service. The Founding Fathers were likely focused on keeping state militias from being disarmed, said Joseph Blocher, who specializes in the Second Amendment at Duke Universitys law school," Phillips wrote.

Joseph Blocher similarly attributed claims that the amendment protects individual rights "to a relatively recent political push by gun rights groups to reinterpret the Constitution."

PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT LAWMAKERS MAKING TEXAS SHOOTING POLITICAL, NOT BETO OROURKE: NEW YORKER

Bodyguard with gun indoor home (iStock)

"There has been a decades-long and very successful movement to change the public perception of what the Second Amendment is for," Blocher said.

Phillips also cited Yale law professor Reva Siegel insisting that "an individuals right to use guns in self-defense is not expressly written in the Constitution."

"The interpretation that the Second Amendment extends to individuals rights to own guns only became mainstream in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gun case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns in their homes, knocking down the Districts handgun ban," Phillips wrote.

FOLLOWING TEXAS SHOOTING, REPUBLICANS ARE FAILING AT PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM HARM: LA TIMES

Comedian Dean Obeidallah echoed this view in an MSNBC column on Saturday in which he insisted the individuals right to own a firearm came from a "cravenly political" Supreme Court following the Heller decision rather than the Constitution.

Phillips concluded with a quote from Saint Josephs University professor Susan Liebell suggesting that an upcoming gun case in the Supreme Court could expand gun rights even further.

"We have moved to more and more radical interpretation of the Second Amendment," Liebell said.

With loaded firearms in hand and flags all around people gather for a 5 Mile Open Carry March for Freedom organized by Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, U.S. July 4, 2016. (REUTERS)

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In 2021, the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The case focuses on whether people have the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense. The court is expected to announce its decision in the next few days or weeks.

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Washington Post reporter claims the Second Amendment was reinterpreted to include individual gun rights - Fox News

On the brutal reality of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting and all the others in our country dating back to Columbine and Luke Woodhams rampage at Pearl High School in Mississippi the thoughts and prayers of do-nothing politicians ring particularly hollow and meaningless.

I come at this as a gun owner, a hunter, someone who absolutely will defend my home and family with force, and as one who supports the rule of law and respects the authority of those who wear the badge and stand their posts.

Likewise, I come at this as a father, grandfather, and educator responsible for other peoples children. Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, gun owners and gun opponents, its time to come to the table and find common ground that makes us all safer particularly innocent children.

All of us in this country have let the National Rifle Association and similar groups make us afraid and we as voters have allowed them to hold our political processes hostage. When party primaries are made litmus tests on who can genuflect most to the gun lobby, responsible government and sensible public policy are not the results.

Having safer schools may hit us all in the wallet through higher taxes to pay for the security we say we want. More stringent background checks may slow gun transactions. The current distinctions between handguns, long guns, and assault weapons need to be reconsidered. But our current laws and the enforcement of them or lack thereof arent working.

No, background checks and other deterrent strategies will not categorically stop school shootings. Yes, those measures will annoy and inconvenience law-abiding citizens. But they almost certainly will decrease incidents like Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Pearl, and Columbine.

As a society, we have made it too easy for the evil, the angry, or the mentally ill among us to get and possess guns. They are using those easily acquired guns to kill our children.

Congress and our state legislatures face the challenge of making schools safer from gun violence and those lawmakers must somehow find the political courage to risk alienating the gun lobby.

The gun lobby makes a lot of noise about activist judges limiting freedom and grabbing guns. Most of it is fundraising nonsense that plays on fear, prejudice, and anger.

I had a chance conversation with a sitting Supreme Court justice at an art gallery opening in Jackson, Mississippi on March 31, 2001. Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative lion of the high court, was appropriately dressed for the occasion except for the knee-high snake boots into which his trousers were neatly tucked.

Scalia was in Mississippi that day for two reasons. First and foremost, the jurist was here to go turkey hunting in Jones County. Second, Scalias time in Mississippi coincided with the day King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sophia of Spain paid a royal visit to Jacksons Mississippi Arts Pavilion for a private tour of the states The Majesty of Spain exhibit.

In talking with Scalia, it became obvious that he loved both the fine arts and rural Mississippi hunting pleasures with nearly equal passions. After his 2016 death (while he was on a hunting trip in Texas), I reflected on the dichotomy of this learned mans worldview and his surprisingly forthright views on the Second Amendment.

In 2008s District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that gun rights did not inure only to those in a well-regulated militia as anti-gun forces argued but to individuals in their homes which affirmed the pro-gun arguments in the case and overjoyed the NRA. Scalia wrote the majority opinion.

But Scalia also wrote something else in the Heller decision that the NRA didnt applaud: Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

Scalia would also assert the belief that like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited and that it is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

Justice Scalias assertion remains as true today as it was 20 years ago. The Second Amendment is not a blank check.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.

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Justice Scalia's words on Second Amendment absolutism are true, prophetic - Daily Leader - Dailyleader

Published: 6/2/2022 9:25:28 AM

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.

Do the rights to bear arms remain if there is an existing well regulated militia? Is a well regulated militia to be formed by those who have the rightto bear arms? Hasnt Congress decided that the National Guard is the militia? Hasnt the security of the United States been repeatedly and successfully defended by the U.S. armed forces? Can the security of a free state, or more importantly its citizens, be ensured by the peoples right to bear arms, or can it also be threatened, compromisedeven violated because of that right?

Shouldnt we be more concerned about how this amendments interpretation has changed our society for the worse? How it has led to increased violence, fears of public exposure, changed schools settings from places of safe learning to increasingly militarized fortresses.

This amendment has been addressed by the Supreme Court in 1876, 1886, 1939 and 2008, when the current ruling passed by a 5-4 decision. I think it time for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Frank Meneghini

Peterborough

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Revisiting the Second Amendment - Monadnock Ledger Transcript

Former President Donald Trump repeated his support for a constitutional right to bear arms before his scheduled speech Friday at a National Rifle Association (NRA) event. Meanwhile, the Senate's top Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has signaled his openness to "a bipartisan solution that's directly related to the facts" in response to Tuesday's mass school shooting in Texas.

Calling into Sebastian Gorka's America First radio show on Thursday, Trump said the Second Amendment, which gun rights advocates say protects gun ownership, is crucial to Americans' safety and well-being.

"But on Friday night, I'll be in Houston and we'll be making a speech and discussing a lot of the things which you would agree to and, you know, you have to protect. You have to protect your Second Amendment. You have to give that Second Amendment great protection because without it we would be a very dangerous country, frankly," Trump said.

On Tuesday, 19 children and two teachers were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The gunman, an 18-year-old dropout named Salvador Ramos, was eventually killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent inside the school. The killings have renewed demands for federal gun control legislation, which has encountered Republican opposition after similar events, such as Connecticut's Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. Twenty children and six adults died in that incident.

On the same day as Trump's remarks, McConnell said he directed Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn to talk to two Democratic senators, Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and Connecticut's Chris Murphy, as well as "others who are interested in trying to get an outcome that is directly related to the problem" of gun violence, according to CNN.

McConnell added, "I am hopeful that we could come up with a bipartisan solution."

Following the shooting, Murphy spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday and, in a video that has been viewed more than 2 million times, passionately asked the chamber's members, "What are we doing?"

He went on to ask his colleagues why they spend so much time and effort becoming senators "if your answer is that as the slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing."

During his interview with Gorka, who was Trump's deputy adviser on national security issues, the former president noted the timing of his upcoming speech to the NRA. "You know I'm making a speech at the NRA in Houston. It'll be very interesting. It's, you know, an interesting time to be making such a speech, frankly."

Trump also touched on other subjects, such as election integrity; the documentary 2000 Mules, which claims to have evidence of voter fraud in the last presidential race; and Representative Liz Cheney. The Wyoming Republican has been an outspoken critic of the former president and is on the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

"Then, on Saturday night, I'm going to Wyoming to campaign against Liz Cheney, who's absolutely atrocious, the job she's done," Trump said.

Newsweek reached out to McConnell's office and a Trump representative for further comments.

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Trump Urges 'Protection' of Second Amendment as McConnell Floats Gun Reform - Newsweek

Town Square with Ernie Manouse airs at 3 p.m. CT. Tune in on 88.7FM, listen online or subscribe to the podcast. Join the discussion at 888-486-9677, questions@townsquaretalk.org or @townsquaretalk.

In this third episode of our coverage on the Uvalde mass shooting, Mustafa Tameez, President and Founder of Outreach Strategists, whos also a former consultant on counter-violent extremism for the US Department of Homeland Security, addresses why some may refer to these types of shootings as homegrown terrorism.

And as demand for new gun reform that previously failed to pass Congress are raised again, with some Americans now questioning the Second Amendment, University of Houston law professor Sandra Guerra Thompson explains if its possible that were about to see another significant spike in support after what happened in Uvalde.

Also, we have an update from Bri Kirkham, Digital Editor for Texas Public Radio, who shares what the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety recently addressed to the media in Uvalde.

Additionally on the show, News 88.7's Reporter Lucio Vasquez and Ariel Hobbs, Program Coordinator with March for Our Lives Houston, speak to our listening audience live from outside this weekends NRA Annual Convention at the George R. Brown Conventions Center.

Town Square with Ernie Manouse is a gathering space for the community to come together and discuss the day's most important and pressing issues.

Audio from todays show will be available after 5 p.m. CT. We also offer a free podcast here, on iTunes, and other apps.

Fill out the form below to subscribe our new daily editorial newsletter from the HPM Newsroom.

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Is the Second Amendment too vague? Most Americans now want stricter gun laws and universal background checks. - Houston Public Media

By Pat Bullard

T

he Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights passed by Congress in 1791. I fail to see how it grants one individual the right to destroy another individuals right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and to arm oneself with weapons designed for war for a mass killing of the enemy.

In 1994, the U.S. Congress banned assault weapons and mass shootings dropped by 43%. When the GOP-controlled Congress in 2004 let the ban expire, mass shootings have shot up by 239%. Approximately 50,000 are shot or wounded by guns each year in the U.S. Gun violence is by far highest in the U.S. than any other civilized nation. As Leonard Pitts said in his column (May 30), it only happens here.

Each child murdered and mutilated had a heartbeat until they were murdered. And for how many years have children been traumatized by these mass murders in their schools, and being trained how to deal with an active shooter in their school? I was shocked to learn my kindergartner great-grandchild five years ago had to undergo frequent drills to deal with a possible active shooter at her school.

We are not interested in taking away your personal gun for hunting or home protection, if you are licensed, responsible and keep them under lock and key.But we are way beyond grief having people massacred and mutilated by idiots who should not be in possession of such weapons, especially weapons of destruction designed for the battlefield and not an individuals use. And an 18-year-old being able to buy a weapon of mass destruction? There were children murdered in Texas last week whose faces were so mutilated by an assault weapon that DNA from their parents had to be used to identify them.

And I have read of at least eight mass shootings in the U.S. since then, although not as horrendous, mass shootings. Only in the U.S.

The right to bear arms should not supersede the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the rest of us.Yes, it is a political issue as well and we must vote against any and all who love their guns more than they love our children.

For those who argue, but we do love our children, actions speak louder than words. Obstructionist GOP are beholden to NRA money and gun manufacturers and have refused to act on gun safety issues put forward by Democrats for the years since 2004.

Pat Bullard lives in China Grove.

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Pat Bullard, My Turn: Second Amendment shouldn't allow anyone to destroy another's right to life - Salisbury Post - Salisbury Post