Mar 12, 2020 3 min read

It is misleading to cede any and all gun-control measures to the gun-rights extremists on the grounds of the Second Amendment. They argue not only that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to own guns, but that virtually any restriction on the manufacture, sale, ownership, or use of any type of firearm is a sacred right. This is unfounded.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), again held that the Second Amendment secures the right of law-abiding, responsible adults to have guns. Yet, Justice Anton Scalia explained: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited”; that the Second Amendment is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, and for whatever purpose.” Scalia warned that the court’s opinion does not cast doubt on gun laws, such as limiting where guns can be carried and “imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

This is inherent within the text of the Second Amendment – in the part that gun-rights absolutists always ignore – where the Founders emphasized the importance of “a well regulated Militia.” That goes part-and-parcel with “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”: the latter is not exclusive of the former. The 18th century militia was composed of citizens carrying their own guns – but even then the framers of the Second Amendment recognized that such militia must be “well regulated”: disciplined, trained and properly instructed in using their arms safely, properly and effectively, for the good of the people, not how some so-called militias today promote.

I am one of a multi-generational family of hunters and gun owners. I was well taught on how guns are to be respected; how to use them safely and efficiently, where a one-shot, clean kill of a prized game animal, following the law and unwritten rules, is what it is all about. That is definitely not blazing away heedlessly with a semi-automatic weapon.

I continue to be amazed by many who are responsible gun owners who continue to allow themselves to be used for inherently political purposes by those with desperate cries of the Second Amendment. They themselves should recognize that rational and reasonable gun controls will ultimately strengthen and safeguard their right to bear arms.

Thomas R. Moore

Waynesburg