NRA alternate acronyms

Not Responsible Adults

Nearly Retarded and Armed

No Reading Allowed

Noxious Ranting A**holes

Remember Guns don't kill people, People kill people ... with GUNS!

Amendment 2 Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Imagine, if you will, a world in which the exact literal interpretation, with no rational thought, of this amendment is honored.

Everyone would have to be part of a well regulated militia. In this time, in this country, that means if you have a gun you would have to be part of the National Guard. You would be encouraged to own a gun and ammunition. This ownership would be for the purpose of protecting the city and the state in which you lived. The obvious correct meaning of this amendment is that the state does not want the expense of or the danger of a standing army. The state does desire that it be protected without a huge onerous burden being placed on the citizens as a whole.

Everyone could have a gun or guns who wanted one of whatever type, the obvious inference being get what you can afford. No provision is being made in this amendment for stopping mentally unstable people from getting guns. It does not stop ex-convicted felons from owning firearms. No exclusion is made for teenage children because at the time they would have been considered at least partially to be adults. The only limiting condition here is that the person has to be able to get a firearm on his or her own. The purpose of this amendment, as clearly stated, is really for the "security of a free State" this is to be done by not infringing on the right to keep and bear arms.

The NRA and other unreasonable people want to ignore the clearly stated purpose of this amendment. Think about some of the wonderful situations we would have with any or even everybody carrying as many weapons as possible, especially concealed weapons any time and any place. Some will claim it is for personal protection, which is not part of the wording of this amendment. I heard on a radio talk show one gun owner irritated that Illinois state law prevents him from shooting someone who in a hypothetical situation did not have a gun and was attempting to steal the gun owner's property outside of the owner's home. This goes beyond self defense and goes straight to the Wild West of a previous era. Has this guy so little concern for Human life that he values his personal possessions which can be protected by the police, insurance, or even recovered more than a person whose life can not really be replaced? I have been robbed before and I understand the sense of violation that being robbed can give. It still is not worth a human life. How about allowing guns into the courtroom. How well would justice be served if both sides in the proceeding were armed and under the fallacious self protection concept able to sway the court with their weapons. In fact why don't we just abolish the courts and have people settle their differences with guns? Does that sound like fun? If adolescents were able to carry weapons in school but not required to register their weapons or be forced to take training classes imagine the fun in a Columbine type situation. Remember the Virginia Tech Shootings? Lets put hundreds of scared armed and in many cases completely untrained people in a dangerous situation. Police would be unable to help with minor situations because they would need all of the firepower and training to take down major criminals. We would be required to police ourselves with our own weapons. The people most likely to have the most weapons would be the people least likely to be someone who should be trusted to have any weapons. Yet according to the wording of the amendment and the deliberate misunderstanding by gun nuts they would allow people many lacking in principals or in valuing human life to carry any type of weapon any where they want.

The gun rights people will tell you that only gun ownership is important with this amendment. They ignore the militia part and claim it is talking about personal protection. It is not! Then some of them infringe on the rights of those who have paid their debts to society (ex-convicted felons) or the mentally unstable who have just as much right as anyone else to protect themselves. Consistency from people who don't comprehend what they read is probably not something that can reasonably be expected. Note I am not FOR arming ex-cons or mentally or emotionally unstable people.

Many years ago, I worked at a Mission Center in Houston. Twice knives were pulled in my presence. We in the center were able to get the young men to leave the center property no guns required. Once, a couple of guys tried to steal a car from the center parking lot. After we called the police a few of the workers whom I was responsible for disobeyed me and went out to find out what was going on. I followed them to get them to come back inside. I told them to leave the broken car that was in the lot alone. As I was trying to get them to get back in I got separated from the rest of the center workers. When I got back to the front of the lot two people were at the car that did not belong. I walked toward them to remind them that I had told them to leave the car alone. It turned out to be the two guys that had been trying to steal a car. One of them had a gun. It was dark and I had extremely poor vision at the time. If I had been in possession of a gun I probably would have missed my target and who knows what or whom I would have hit. If he fired back who knows who he would have hit. I was able to convince the guys to leave the center lot without shooting anyone. As they were pushing their broken car out of the lot all the teen aged boys in the center came out to help me. As one of them said they can't shoot all of us. We were lucky that none of us were shot. Think about how bad it could have been if they had come charging out of the house into the dark with guns blazing to "protect me." How many people would have been hurt by untrained individuals without a clue firing wildly in a situation that had up to that point been handled without any guns being fired.

Some people many of whom are NRA members and spokespeople for that organization want to give guns with no restrictions to any untrained idiot around. Some of the restrictions that these people in the NRA are suing Chicago and or Illinois over are apparently three day waiting periods, permits to carry concealed weapons, and a requirement of a firearms safety training course and weapons training. These are all reasonable requirements similar in effect to the limits put on the first amendment right of free speech such as you are not allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. You are not allowed to yell hijack in an airport or on a plane. There are limits to an individual telling lies to harm another person's reputation.

If the NRA can not be trusted to accept reasonable limits for the common good of our society we as a nation need to revise our Amendments to the Constitution to keep them from harming our society by forcing us into an insane and irresponsible interpretation of our second amendment rights to keep and bear arms.

P.S. This goes for the ACLU and their less than intelligent all out defense of Free speech rights in many cases completely in defiance of logical thought.