The Second Amendment is a very simple clause, written as a single sentence, and easily understood by anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the English language. Its meaning becomes even clearer with a rudimentary knowledge of the history of the United States. At the time is was written, our Founding Fathers were concerned about creating a government controlled by the people rather than the other way around. They clearly felt that allowing the people to arm themselves against the government was one way of assuring that the government would never oppress the people.
There is nothing in the Second Amendment that has anything whatsoever to do with duck hunting.
However, our country currently has many laws that clearly violate the Second Amendment (sawed-off shotguns, automatic weapons, concealed weapons laws), many of which have even been upheld by the Supreme Court. Clearly, the Justices are either unable to read, or even they are capable of putting political interests above the law of the land.
At the time the Second Amendment was written, the most powerful weapons on Earth were cannons. Did our founding fathers mean to imply that the right to own a cannon would not be infringed? In my opinion, the answer is clearly yes. They did not specify that the right to bear shoulder-fired arms shall not be infringed, or the right to bear single-shot rifles shall not be infringed, or even that the right to bear firearms shall not be infringed. They said the right to bear arms shall not be infringed, and they meant any arms. At the time, that meant cannons. Today, that means not only fully-automatic rifles, but grenades, anti-aircraft missiles, even nuclear weapons!
Is that a good thing? I suspect most Americans would agree
that it is
not. But the solution is not to write unconstitutional laws and ask the
Supreme Court to uphold them despite the clarity of the Second
Amendment.
The proper course of action is to amend the Second Amendment so that it
more properly defines the rights of citizens
to defend themselves against others or their government.
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Of course, if you have questions or comments, you are welcome to send e-mail to me at "palmk at nettally dot com".