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LTE: Constitution is not Antiquated |
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Written by Mike Kinsey
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Monday, 19 November 2007 |
A recent letter to the editor of The Dayton Daily News decided to regurgitate a frequent "argument" used by the anti-gun right zealots that want to continue to infringe upon our Second Amendment rights a bite at a time. One class of firearms that they think society will tolerate placing further un-Constitutional restrictions is the misleading named class of "assault weapons." As we know, "assault weapons", or "utility rifles" as they should be called, are semi-automatic firearms that function exactly the same as average hunting rifles used all over the country. Utility rifles merely have certain cosmetic features that do not affect their deadliness, range, or speed of fire in any way.
This initial letter reads:
Constitution does not protect AK-47s
A close friend's son was recently shot to death — an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. The weapon: an AK-47.
The argument of National Rifle Association and other right-to-bear-arms proponents is simply antiquated. The Constitution was written more than 200 years ago. It hardly has the same interpretation today. Let's give everybody a single-shot muzzle loader if we want to hide behind the Constitution.
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It's time to attack crime and protect our citizens in this country with the same vigor and monetary effort we do in other countries.
Today's Dayton Daily News published my rebuttal. Hopefully, we can all stand up to these inane arguments and remind people what the Second Amendment truly stands for:
Constitution is not Antiquated
The writer of a Nov. 12 letter to the editor holds an inaccurate view that the "Constitution does not protect AK-47s." The letter writer is of the opinion that the Second Amendment "is simply antiquated" and that only single-shot muzzle loaders should be protected by our Constitution.
By this logic, the First Amendment does not protect freedom of speech for modern newspapers such as the Dayton Daily News. After all, the founding fathers were thinking only of simple printing presses, quills and parchment. They never envisioned that speech could be spewed from the hip in mere seconds toward innocent people in rapid-fire Web stories and emails.
I urge everyone to research our country's history and understand why the "right to keep and bear arms" is the cornerstone of our freedom. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It was penned as a guarantee to ensure that ordinary citizens would always retain the means to defend themselves from tyranny, no matter what type of arms were developed in later years.
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