My Stand

On gun control…

I believe that when our founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment they didn’t even dream of a weapon that could fire over 1 round a minute. Their main thoughts about owning a weapon was first to put food on the table and second to fight off Indian attacks. When a couple of years ago I went up to Sturbridge village a living museum in Massachusetts they had a sign on the wall ordering all adult males to own a rifle and to report to the village green on Sundays to drill for the militia. That is what they meant when they wrote this “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.”

It wasn’t until the Regan Supreme Court in 2008 that it was interpreted to mean that anything goes. Earlier Supreme Court rulings; like the Supreme Court in 1939 heard a case (United States v. Miller) challenging the National Firearms Act of 1934 the required automatic weapons to be registered and taxed. They ruled that the 2^nd Amendment only covered gun ownership as part of a well regulated militia,

"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

It wasn’t until Regan appointed two conservative justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy that tipped the court to a conservative court that we have today. It was that court that did a 180 degree turn and stated in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller that,

The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question: Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22–4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?

And that is where we are at today, with a Wild West attitude that anything goes.

So what is my position on gun control?

1. I believe that everyone should have a background check to own a gun.
2. I believe that limiting the number of rounds that a magazine can hold.
3. I believe that gun owners should be responsible for the guns that they own, that if it lost or stolen that they have to report it.

I think the first one is reasonable, we should be able to make sure that a criminal and people who want to harm others shouldn’t own guns. I see no reason why people should be able to own high capacity magazines; if you can’t hit your target in four or five shots you shouldn’t really own a gun until you can hit your target. The last item I think is important because so many times about guns being stolen and never reported until the gun turns up being used in a crime. The owner just says “Oh, I lost the gun years ago” and never reported it and that begs the question did the person really lose the gun or are they just saying that to hide the crime.

When I was teenager I used to go shooting on a farm with friends and we shot at the usual things teen did; like cans, woodchucks and other things you find around a farm. In college I took skeet shooting for a gym class which I liked and also my father owned a pistol. So I don’t think guns should be banned just regulated.

Update 12:30:
It was just announced that the Supreme Court refused to hear the case challenging the New York law requiring a reason to carry a pistol in public.

New York Gun Limits Intact as High Court Rejects Appeal
Bloomberg
By Greg Stohr
April 15, 2013

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a rebuff to gun-rights advocates including the National Rifle Association, leaving intact New York’s requirement that people wishing to carry a handgun in public show a special need for protection.

Refusing for now to be drawn into the fractious nationwide debate over firearms, the justices today let stand a federal appeals court decision that said the century-old New York law didn’t infringe the Constitution’s Second Amendment. The court made no comment, turning away an appeal by five New York residents and a gun-rights group as part of a list of orders released in Washington.
[…]
The measure was challenged by five residents of New York’s Westchester County and the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun- rights group based in Bellevue, Washington. The National Rifle Association and 20 states backed the appeal.