Gun Searches

On junk guns and guns in general, Mark Nielsen put a modest proposal in (letter, Jan. 24): “Let’s turn into a military state for a month and conduct house-to-house searches, waiving search warrants, and take all unregistered arms.”

And unregistered copies of the Bill of Rights? In the same spirit, I modestly propose that, when we trash the 4th Amendment’s search and seizure protections in order to trash the 2nd Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms, we should not forget to trash the 3rd Amendment along the way. In over two centuries since independence, no administration has attempted “quartering of soldiers” in people’s houses, but there’s always a first time. When the military does go door to door to tear up everybody’s house looking for guns, they’ll need to commandeer houses for barracks. The 1st Amendment would go into the dumpster shortly thereafter.

JAMES K. MATTIS

Sunland