The Norman Transcript

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March 17, 2013

Second Amendment doesn’t call for regulation

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Editor, the Transcript:

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America: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.

Mr. Steele’s letter on March 10 seeks to have the reader believe the Second Amendment requires arms be “well regulated”. I fail to see how anyone could construe that meaning from the text of the Second Amendment. It does not even imply that arms should be regulated in any way. The term “well regulated militia” refers to a state’s militia being trained, equipped and disciplined; see the readings in the following paragraph. Mr. Steele’s point concerning the regulation of arms being required by the Second Amendment is totally wrong and nothing more than out of context phrasing used to make a point.

An explanation of why and how the Second Amendment came into being and what it seeks to do as a part of the “Bill of Rights” can be found at wikipedia.org, as well as additional readings concerning the Second Amendment and the courts.

Interesting and informative quotes and comments from the constitutional founders, state’s delegates and other notables of the time can be found at: uhuh.com/guns/2ndquotes.htm.

I agree that some types of arms should be unavailable to the general public and that list is currently long enough. I do not believe that semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, handguns and “assault weapons” should be further regulated, nor magazine capacity limited. This “assault weapons” scare is only because some look like military issue weapons making them an obvious target for control advocates and fear mongers.

I go along with expanded background checks with stipulation that transfers of arms between qualified family members require no checks or documentation and that no ownership databases of any kind be authorized or maintained at any governmental level. The HIPAA should be modified to allow pertinent patient information to be captured for the expanded background check.

John T. Ashmore

Norman

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