Repeal the Second Amendment
In Oregon recently, an unorganized militia group protested the use of land as a national wildlife refuge. Tragically, one protester was shot and killed.
That episode, plus a host other episodes of gun-related violence, ought to compel us to consider whether the Second Amendment should be repealed.
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.”
To better understand the meaning of the word “militia,” I turned to my dictionary. That word has several meanings, one of which is identified as an “Americanism” that reads: “…in the U.S., all able-bodied males not already members of the National Guard and the Reserves (of the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps) constitutes the organized militia; all others, the unorganized militia.”
Ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment’s symbol is the minuteman farmer standing in his field with both a horse-drawn plow and a musket at hand. However appropriate that symbol might have been in 1791, it is not at all relevant to modern warfare.
During the days of the Wild West, cowboys arriving at market following a long, hard cattle drive were regularly required to stow their guns in the sheriff’s office until they left town. That practice was arrived at in order to ensure civility. Nowadays, such sound judgment is construed to be an infringement of a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.
It is my opinion that civility within our nation would be immensely improved if the Second Amendment were repealed.
Paul Lagojda
Cumberland Township