Gun Rights Turn on ‘Militia’

The fox is indeed guarding the henhouse when it comes to guns and the Bush administration. It buys completely into the gun lobby’s self-serving interpretation of the 2nd Amendment--that it guarantees an individual’s right to bear arms--when the document specifically refers to a well-regulated militia’s right. The vast pool of published opinion (including the Supreme Court) supports the idea that the constitutional framers meant the amendment to guarantee the right of a new nation, born in a violent revolution, the right to maintain an armed military. Well, we have that and need that. What we don’t need, and what was never intended, is a nation awash in guns and gun violence. A nation so violent and unsafe it is seen by other Western democracies as somehow at war with itself.

That our levels of homicide are so incredibly higher than these other countries’ is attributable to many things, but the primary, obvious cause is the proliferation of guns (the vast majority are committed with firearms). To reduce this shameful carnage, we must tightly control if not eliminate altogether the sale of dangerous handguns--weapons designed specifically to kill human beings.

Eddie Dunlop

Pasadena

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The Violence Policy Center is free to criticize President Bush for revamping the government’s official policy on guns (July 26). However, it should read the decision in United States vs. Miller before stating that the Constitution only grants the militia, not individuals, the right to bear arms.

Miller was charged with possessing a sawed-off shotgun without having paid the appropriate tax. The court found “ . . . that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.” Thus, the court found Miller was a member of the militia and had a right to bear arms. It further stated “that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” Thus, they had to decide if a sawed-off shotgun was in common use by the military.

The court held that a sawed-off shotgun could be regulated, as “certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.” In other words, if Miller had possessed a military weapon, the court would have found it to be part of the ordinary military equipment and a weapon that could not be regulated.

James Winterroth

Torrance

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Frances Terrell Lippman (letter, July 30) states that the 2nd Amendment is “old” and worked just fine 200 years ago when our country was “young and primitive,” implying that it is no longer needed. What other amendments are “old” and overused? Let’s start with the 4th Amendment. Or how about the 9th? The 2nd Amendment is the chair on which all the other amendments sit.

Lippman says that too many people are being killed and maimed by guns in the hands of reckless and dangerous people. You know how you cure that? You hold people accountable for their actions. No excuses. If I use a gun in a reckless and irresponsible manner, then I should be punished. Lock me up and throw away the key.

The 2nd Amendment preserves all the others and ensures that our Bill of Rights remains. If you doubt it, kindly speak to a Holocaust survivor, as I have. The Jews in Hitler’s Europe had no chance to defend themselves, due to “sensible” gun regulations from the Reichstag. Their only defense was a hope that it wouldn’t be so bad and it was just rhetoric that would blow over. Don’t think that such events could happen here? Freedoms don’t disappear overnight; they are chipped away, little by little, until they are gone. Rights come with responsibilities; make people responsible.

Charles Vejvoda

Monrovia