Historical April–May 2013 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Last month’s notebook on guns stimulated a strong response from Gary Carr. Quoting in part, Carr said: Lana Stein devoted her Editor’s Notebook column, Vol 42, #5, to her reasons for banning assault weapons.
My friend Lana’s piece leads with her heart and not her head.
The column is loaded with factual inaccuracies and misperceptions.
As I read it, implicit in Lana’s column is her real desire that all firearms capable of firing multiple rounds rapidly without reloading should be banned.
If so, she should just say so.
The prime purpose of all firearms is to disable or kill a living thing. Yet, such a ban would eliminate virtually all firearms short of a single-shot, Kentucky long rifle, musket, or pistol. Apart from the fact that implementation of her views would destroy what James Madison in Federalist 46 called the “advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation,” her views, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, are inconsistent with the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
The real reason for the arms portion of the Second Amendment has little if anything to do directly with hunting or target shooting; it has to do with guarantees of the natural right to be free.
There is now and always has been a price to pay for that right. Lana replies: The Bill of Rights gave us freedom of speech but you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. Sometimes the price of a right can be too expensive for the people to bare.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April–May 2013.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2013_04.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
