It was a quote embedded in an article about that Texas GOP elected official censured by the State party for having the chutzpah (a word not often heard in Texas) to vote in favor of a reasonable gun control bill. It was as clear a statement about why modern America is just not working under our two-plus centuries old Constitution with its outrageously outdated Second Amendment. Here is the quote from the Second Amendment afficionados:
“Knowing full well the potential of mass violence and killing, the Founders did not suppose that a greater government would provide an antidote…To the contrary, they enshrined the pre-existing right of the People to defend themselves against such evils into this Nation’s constitution and enacted an enduring bulwark against the government’s infringement of that sacred right.”
Really? The Founders knew about the potential of mass violence and killing in 1791 as a result of AR-15 assault rifles? Are you kidding me? What “evils” were the Founders thinking of in 1791? The ones we face today? I think not.
What evils does the Second Amendment protect today? Are we truly going to continue to put up with the claim that we need to be armed with assault rifles and large capacity magazines in our homes in the event that The Second Cavalry seeks entry into our homes? Is the argument still out there that there are repeated and regular instances of good folks thwarting crime within the home or in the mall through their possession of a gun at just the right time? Compared to the mass shootings in schools and other places where kids and adults congregate?
It is a remarkable thing to me that no less an authority on law and its history in America than the late Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens advocated for the repeal of the Second Amendment, in favor of licensing and regulation through a combination of federal and state laws applied to the populations they serve. Stevens recognized that gun possession and use for hunting and home protection would never go away in the absence of The Second Amendment, but that if treated with the same care as driving a car, gun ownership, possession and use along with the banning of military weapons in hands other than military hands might just save a lot of lives.
When will we at least start talking seriously in America about this first of many changes that our modern society needs regarding what is clearly an outdated, outmoded past-its-prime written charter?