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Paul Elisha: The 2nd Amendment And Reality

 In frequent past circumstances, this currently dispirited paladin was moved to remind certain ‘Second Amendment’ advocates (who’ve had what more of us should believe are misdirected objectives), about its starkly restrictive preamble.  Few of them seem, either to have read and /or correctly interpreted it.  In his first inaugural address, after being elected the third American President, in 1801, Thomas Jefferson said that the sum of a good government is to restrain its citizens….”from injuring one another.” He said this was necessary, “…..to close the circle of our felicities.”

As our nation, its leaders and veterans, (…especially a shrinking few, now, who’ve served in WWII) observe the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack on our Navy, in Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, there’s also a notable shrinkage of restraint, by some so-called ‘Conservative’ officials, who recoil from a responsibility, of the Judiciary, the Congress and State and local Governments, to ensure the proper conduct of Police, who have a sworn duty to ensure the peaceful freedom of all law-abiding citizens; regardless of their color, religious belief or financial status.  Recently, though, an increasing number of police, nation-wide, seem to be changing into units of behavioral bullies, who answer the dictates of their own self-serving prejudice.

The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution’s Preamble starts with the words: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” a phrase aimed at   deterring anyone, for whom deadly armaments and actions are lawfully allowed, from using them in an uncontrolled or prejudicial manner.  For certain, our founders didn’t want to put such awesome power into the hands of anyone, with a scathing personal score to settle.  Government leaders and officials, at all levels, must now re-assume their responsibility, to ensure public respect for life, limb and liability, nationwide.  A growing number of recently enacted state laws, that allow citizens to carry and use concealed weapons, in response to a perceived threat or possible danger of bodily harm, have made this re-assumption a vital necessity.

Too many of today’s nonconforming citizens ignore the plain fact, that those in our country’s first Militia literally had to bring the same muskets with them that they used, to put food on their familial tables.  This newborn nation simply didn’t have the fiscal wherewithal, to fund and equip a large regular military force.  That’s an absurdly contrived analogy that simply doesn’t wash against the reality of today’s large and complex American military services system, with its technologically organized specialist units.  Nonconformist mavericks, seeking the solace of gun-ownership, for cussedness or for-profit connivance are helping corporate profiteers compile an outsized obituary list of innocent American citizens our nation cannot afford to lose.  Together, we can and must convince responsible political leaders to reassert their responsibility for reasonable yet necessary regulation.  The future of this fragile miraculous experiment depends on it.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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