Gun nation under god.
The American Pledge of Allegiance may need to be changed as indicated in the title.The second item in the bill of rights provides the right for citizens to bear arms. This was accepted in 1791, back when settlers were still fighting native Americans, each other and the dangerous wildlife. Since then they have had wars with the French from Canada, the Spanish, the Mexicans, the British and of course, each other during the civil war.
Those times have changed. There is now a structured law enforcement regime to protect the citizens. There is the army, navy, air force and marines to protect the borders from foreign invaders.
The politicians and the NRA must accept that times have changed and accept that the second amendment needs to be repealed. Compare the number of gun deaths per capita with other developed nations and you see that the easy access to weapons is killing the American people.
The weapons have changed as well. When the laws were passed, guns were inaccurate, single shot weapons that were a one shot kill would be rare. If the politicians and the NRA are not prepared to move with the times and accept the second amendment being repealed, then they should also refuse to accept that times have moved with gun technology. If the second amendment stays, then it should only apply to weapons that were available when the amendment was passed.
George Dubya allowed Clinton's law banning semi-automatic weapons to lapse yesterday. Changing a semi-automatic to fully automatic is a very easy step. Why did George Dubya allow these weapons back onto the streets of the US?
The pro-gun NRA had declined to announce support for either George Dubya or John Kerry. They have said that John Kerry is the most anti-gun candidate to ever nominate for President, but they would wait until mid-September before making their choice of candidate public.
After letting the guns back onto the streets, I imagine it will be a very short time before the NRA comes out in fulsome support of George Dubya. The NRA would never have supported Kerry, but George Dubya decided to consign an extra few hundred Americans to death by gun-fire to make sure that support stayed with him.
NRA figurehead Charlton Heston once said that they would have to prise his gun "from my cold dead hands". The concept of his cold dead hands is somehow very appealing.
posted by Kevin Paine @ 1:25 pm
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