Monday, October 2, 2017

Las Vegas Shooting

I’ll be brief.

One more massacre on American soil, committed by a crazy man with an automatic weapon.  But he may not have been crazy until he went crazy (we don’t know his story yet).

The Second Amendment reads: 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.

Many Constitutional “experts” like to disregard the first thirteen words, a dependent clause.  I am NOT arguing that the people should NOT have the right of armed self-defense (against a neighbor, not a foreign military power), but I am
arguing that the Second Amendment clearly does not support that “right” (ownership of a firearm for the purpose of self-defense is "Constitutional" because the Supreme Court said so, but the framers of the Constitution declared no such right).

It is impossible to prove how our Founding Fathers would have reacted to weapons of today: military-style automatic and semi-automatic firearms.  Their reality was single-shot rifles that could get off maybe a few shots per minute.  Today’s reality is automatic weapons that can fire 3 to 12 rounds per second.  There is just no way to commit such mass carnage as the Las Vegas shooter committed (see also) without such a weapon.  Why are these weapons of mass destruction even legal for American civilians?  Surely, not for your “self-defense.”  Maybe because gun manufacturers profit from their manufacture and sale to civilians.  And because Americans like to grab onto slogans (my gun, my freedom), rather than think.

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