Our gun craze can be checked, but there needs to be a will to do so. And it takes time and thought. The problem with the Second Amendment is that too much is made of it. It is my belief that the Supreme Court has done the country a great wrong by interpreting the wording of the Second Amendment as a right applying to individuals. There would not have been this Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, had it not for the wording of the fourth and third last paragraphs in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution. In the original draft of the Constitution the subject of gun rights was not addressed at all. The Constitution gave Congress the following power:
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming [emphasis supplied] and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
Not having studied this in detail, it stands to reason each separate State may have had a Militia at that time. Section 8 simply gave Congress the power to make appropriate laws to call the Militia of the several states into service in time of need. If I had been a Governor of any of the States at the time when the original draft of the Constitution was presented to me to recommend to my state government its acceptance, I might have balked at the wording of that power. It might have been interpreted by the U.S. government that my State Militia should be trained with sticks and would be armed only when called into federal service. As governor I would like to have had the Second Amendment clarify that to allow my State Militia to be armed while training or being called into duty locally.
This, however, would not prohibit my State Assembly, or state legislative body, to make laws to prohibit carrying weapons in organized communities controlled by a sheriff or local police organization. The U.S. Supreme Court and the NRA in my opinion are wrong in thinking different. I believe our Constitution would have been silent on the subject of private gun ownership, had it not for the above mentioned paragraphs in the original draft of the Constitution.
If we really want to lessen unnecessary killings and the general gun craze, local legislation and subsequent support from the public with litigation and powerful arguments to the Supreme Court might do the trick. It takes time and the general willingness to do so.
Or else we can continue to live in our frontier lifestyle.
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