2nd Amendment: ‘History Lesson’
A state where only the police (and military) have guns is a police state.
The same specious version of the Second Amendment presented in the editorial was taught to me in Minneapolis public schools.
But when I studied American history at the University of Minnesota, specializing in the revolutionary period, I learned that what James Madison, Richard Henry Lee and the other Founding Fathers meant by militia cannot be substituted for by the regular armed forces or the national guard.
Contrary to your assertion, the NRA and other pro-gun lobbyists, such as the Second Amendment Foundation, regularly publish and disseminate articles by constitutional scholars that extensively explain the origins and intent of the Second Amendment. They do not ignore the opening clause.
Men are wicked, things are not. And among the instruments wicked men may use to harm others, state power is far more dangerous than a firearm. This the Founding Fathers understood well. The threat of tyranny did not die with George III, and the militia is not an anachronism in 1988.
LEE WARREN SMITH
Culver City
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