Second Amendment is very clear

“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.” Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

I began reading this past Sunday’s editorial with a faint hope that somebody in the print media finally figured out what the Second Amendment really says. For the first four paragraphs, I was encouraged – then I read the following: “There’s nothing wrong, however, with making people register for weapons that aren’t traditionally used for hunting – pistols, automatic weapons, .50-caliber bores, sawed-off barrels.”

Where in the Second Amendment does the word “hunting” appear? I haven’t found it yet, and I’ve been looking for a lot of years. The phrase that keeps jumping out at me is “the security of a free state.”

Hunting is a privilege in this country. The government controls the activity, licenses it, and can deprive an individual of that privilege for violations which, sometimes, are not even hunting related, i.e., failure to pay child support or highway driving-related infractions.

The Second Amendment was written to guarantee the right of an individual to own firearms which would allow him/her the ability to stand up in defense of the country, either from internal government oppression or from an invasion by hostile forces.

If you’re planning to restrict private firearms ownership, perhaps that bolt-action moose rifle or the pricey side-by-side shotgun you use for ptarmigan hunting would be candidates. While either might be used in defense of the country, neither would be as useful as, say, a Barrett .50 BMG-caliber semi-auto rifle — the current long-range sniper rifle our military is using in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

During the American Revolution, the term “assault rifle” did not exist. If it had, however, I suspect the single-shot, flintlock rifle — the so-called “Kentucky Rifle” — would have been tagged as such by the media. That firearm was the “sniper rifle” of its day. It also happened to be the same rifle which put meat on the table for the pioneers pushing the settled boundaries of this country ever westward.

The other phrase that jumps out at me is “shall not be infringed.” A little further down in the editorial, the writer states, “If you want a pistol for home protection, you shouldn’t have anything to hide by registering the weapon.” I don’t understand the logic here.

I don’t have anything to hide, but if the police want to come into my home, they will show me a warrant citing probable cause as to why they want to search my house. That’s the law, as stated in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Unless the government has reason to believe that I am a criminal, why should I have to register my pistol if I want to keep it in my home for personal protection?

The idea of registering a firearm implies that the government controls not only who can have a firearm but also what type of firearm they can have. If that isn’t “infringing” on a right to keep and bear arms, then I’m confused about what “infringement” really means. According to my Webster’s dictionary, “infringe” means, “to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another.”

Just try passing a law restricting free speech in the print media (the First Amendment to the Constitution) and listen to how loudly this newspaper would cry “foul!” Yet they appear to support “infringing” on your right to own and keep a pistol, just because the firearm is a pistol. Again, the logic totally escapes me.

I don’t understand this “cherry picking” mentality — if this part of the Constitution supports my belief system, I’ll support it, and if that part is contrary to how I think the world should operate, then I will oppose or pervert it into what I think it should say.

I’ve always tried to use the exact words with the specific meaning for what I’m trying to say. In my view, the Second Amendment is very clear in what it says about my rights as an American citizen.

Howard Delo lives in Big Lake.