Wednesday letters
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Beyonce, Hillary Clinton and Republicans in today’s letters to the editor.
Pick of the day: Arming our teachers
Arming teachers would be a very dangerous and costly experiment. Would excellent teachers be fired because they couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a pistol?
Remember the delegate whose gun discharged while he was fiddling with it right in his office in the General Assembly Building? He was a person supposedly skilled in the handling of firearms. Would additional guns in schools really make our children safer?
Who would bear the expense incurred in providing teachers with weapons, training and ammunition? Would the National Rifle Association? Would it be another unfunded mandate passed by the state onto local government, then to the taxpayer? Would it be taken from law enforcement budgets? Should weapons and ammunition be added to the list for property tax?
I, for one, am tired of the taxpayers paying for all the detection devices and extra personnel required to secure our schools and other public buildings. Prior to public sale of combat weapons, none of this was required.
MADISON E. MARYE
Virginia State Senate, retired
SHAWSVILLE
January 30, 2013 - 6:11 AM
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
- 9th Amendment
“Shall not be infringed” (2nd amendment) is not carved in stone and is subject to the interpretation of the 9th.
What other rights retained by the people are denied or disparaged by the 2nd Amendment?
Funny how we are decried for ignoring “…shall not be infringed” by the people who demand we ignore “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,”!
And would a non-enumerated right also be subject to limitations via the 9th Amendment, based on a denial or disparaged of other rights retained by the people?
This could be a very slippery slope that no one will like.
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
Restated:
“We are not going to have a large standing army, so we are relying on the state militias (consisting of all the people) to provide the security for these free united States when necessary. So we encourage the militia (consisting of all the people) to arm themselves sufficiently, and obviously, the government cannot hinder that.”
Hope that helps clarify.
And that whole “regulated” thing, 89Hoo?
gdad, since they made no provisions for a substantive standing army, they did not want the states sending a rabble of farmers armed with pitchforks to provide for the security of the free states. So they put the burden on the states of providing organized, orderly companies, battalions, regiments, etc.
Now, it might be argued that that gives the states (Richmond, Albany, etc) the right to regulate arms within the individual states, making it a states rights issue. But that flies against the notion that states cannot make laws which violate the enumerated rights.
As a gun-control advocate, I have to concede that there is absolutely no question that the 2nd amendment protects owning and carrying a weapon (“arms”). The Framers thought it was reasonable for a citizen to have the same kinds of “arms” that a member of the army would have. The line about “militias” comes across as a rationalization and all of the major court decisions have basically ignored it as far as I know.
Gun violence in America is a natural consequence of the free exercise of that right. All freedoms have costs, and the deaths of innocents are part of the inevitable price of this particular freedom.
There really are only two questions worth considering. These are “yes” or “no” questions.
(1) When all the various risks are evaluated, should the second amendment be repealed?
(2) Should there be any restrictions or limits whatsoever on the “arms” that a civilian may own and carry?
8 – well they are not both “yes” or “no” questions.
(1) When all the various risks are evaluated, should the second amendment be repealed?
No.
(2) Should there be any restrictions or limits whatsoever on the “arms” that a civilian may own and carry?
Sure. Just not at the national level. Individual businesses and individuals can declare gun-free zones if they wish, can place as a condition of service that firearms be left at the door. I would even argue that states (outside of Washington) can put limitations…as I said above it becomes a states’ rights issue, which opens up a whole ‘nuther can of worms. But one worth having, in my mind.
#8 Precisely. Thank you.
#1 Sorry CAW, but backwords. The enumerated powers restrict the federal government, not the states, or “the people”. By the way “the people” phraseology is very important throughout the Constitution.
I might be mistaken but I suspect SCOTUS considered the 9nth….and the 10nth Amendment(s) when they rendered Heller & McDonald.