guns and cancer

Okay here goes my ultra-liberal view on guns.

I don’t have a big problem with gun ownership. I think people should be able to own a gun or two. I’m cool with that. Hell, I used to have a gun. It was a 30-30-bolt action rifle. It fired regular run of the mill ammo. I actually don’t remember if I took it to a pawnshop or gave it away. It was long ago. I don’t hunt because it’s too much like work, with all the cleaning and skinning and hauling to a butcher.

But let’s start at the beginning I am as insane about the 2008 supreme court ruling, that said gun ownership is an individual right as conservatives are about Row v. Wade. It drives me to distraction.

My reading of the constitution is that gun ownership is a collective right and the founding fathers never intended anything different.

A quick review – The second amendment says,  “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.”

Section eight, which enumerates the congress’s powers, says:

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress”

I’m just some dope in Newark Delaware writing a cancer blog, but it seems to me without some type of explicit exclusion stating gun rights are individual rights, it seems the militia is an organized institution as opposed to a loose collection of individuals.

Anyway, here’s the point -- military style weapons are designed to kill and maim and they should be designed that way. Like a roofer needs a roofing hammer, Soldiers need specific tools. Outlawing guns that have no purpose outside military usage seems reasonable to me.

But here is the thing the NRA does have a point or two. The enforcement of current gun laws stinks. Modern entertainment in the US is way tooooooo violent. Well I got to go to work so I’ll finish this tomorrow.

Bill