OPINION:
I suspect there are more than a few Americans who do not fully understand why our Founders gave us the Second Amendment. Many seem to think its purpose is to protect our self-defense and hunting rights, but that is not so.
Self-defense is important and needs little if any explanation. Hunting is not just sport. It puts food on the tables of American families, not just the hunter’s family but also those who get thousands of pounds of meat from the food banks to which the hunters donate. And hunting keeps certain species from over-running the countryside.
Not withstanding the above, the reason the Founders gave us the Second Amendment was so the American people could forever defend against government tyranny, which they had experienced under British rule. Fortunately American colonists had weapons the equal of — and in some cases, better than — those of the British army. Even today the Second Amendment does not restrict which weapons the people may have. We are meant to have whatever we might need to fend off a tyrannical U.S. government.
Those who call for more gun control are the very same people who would put together and support the tyrannical government our Founders knew would some day be possible. As a matter of fact, all the restrictive gun laws currently on the books are, in spite of court rulings, unconstitutional. The Second Amendment clearly reads “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It could not be written in plainer language.
C.D. STUBBS JR.
St. Augustine, Fla.
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