Common Sense At Last

As I logged onto my computer to begin researching the topic that I was going to write about today I was quite shocked at the headline of nearly every newspaper site that I went to. In a landmark decision the United States Supreme Court 5 ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment does in fact guarantee all Americans, barring felons and the mentally ill, the right to own firearms.

At last some sense. For thirty-two years, the citizens of Washington D.C. were unable to protect themselves and their families properly because of vague and unclear wording within a document over two hundred years old. Now don’t get me wrong. If the Framers had specifically said that “no citizen without having specific membership in a state militia shall possess firearms” I would have respected and supported the upholding of their wishes. But the fact is….they didn’t. Like many passages within the Constitution, the Framers left it up to the interpretation of the current government. They did not seek to create a rigid and inflexible country that would be ruled by a set of rules set in concrete by a group of men who lived hundreds of years before.

What I believe truly controls the case at hand though is the question of who the law was helping and who it was hurting. In my humble, yet at times quite outspoken, opinion, the only people that this law was helping were the criminals! Try to transport yourself into the mind of a criminal about to rob a house. Would or wouldn’t you be more inclined to carry through with that crime if there was a reasonable chance that your victim did not have a firearm? ESPECIALLY.......since you don’t listen to laws and HAVE a firearm. Seems to be a no-brainer to me. Outcome……criminal helped.

Now….transport yourself into the mind of the victim listening/watching as that criminal invades the sanctity of your house. Unless you happened to be one of the owners of a registered pre-ban firearm, or can unlock the trigger and/or assemble your rifle or shotgun in time, you had only a few choices. Do nothing and hope the criminal doesn’t hurt your family or try to physically combat the criminal and hope that you don’t get shot in the process.......since criminals don’t listen to laws and HAVE firearms. As a man who loves his family, this also is an easy answer. Outcome..….innocent hurt.

Fortunately for the people who live in D.C., this never will have to be a reality again. Yes, the District of Columbia may not be a “state”. But by letting common sense seep in a little bit, it is easy to see that they are every bit a state without the title. Heck, they even get electoral votes due to their population being GREATER than the smallest state. I’m glad that the splitting of hairs is over and we have finally woken up, given back the rights of people who deserved them, and clarified a long contested argument.