Lunacy

"One wonders why it takes "Courier-Post" columnists weeks and thousands of words finally to begin to realize that a society that arms its lunatics with weapons that can fire dozens, perhaps hundreds, of shots per minute is an insane society.
Or, society is so stupid that it allows itself to be bought by its gun collectors. It is self-evident that arming the lunatics is insane.

As much as the gun enthusiasts try to associate the founding fathers with their own pathology, the drafters and adopters of the Second Amendment were faced with weapons that could fire at most a shot or two in a minute. Such weapons might deter an intruder, but such weapons could never enable a massacre. It is not the framers who were idiots, but those who allowed what the framers permitted to be expanded to encompass weapons that might have seemed in 1789 to be weapons of mass destruction.

As a constitutional scholar of some experience, I am perfectly content to adhere to the strict construction and original intention the right wing worships, to permit under the Second Amendment such guns to be privately held as have the same, but not greater, capacity as those available in 1789. Hunters could hunt, homeowners could defend and massacres would end.

Now all we need to do is find the money to buy back our legislatures."

Ira Morton Goldberg

Apparently Ms. Goldberg never heard of the Boston Massacre. March 5, 1770. Last I checked........Yep, 1770 did come before 1789.

In Ira's world, we should ban steak knives. A lunatic can stab dozens of times a minute with them.

"To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops."

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
James Madison, The Federalist Papers

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks."
Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785

Constitutional scholar of some experience eh?

Ira Goldberg fails to understand the very basis of the 2nd amendment. No arms were forbidden. Not muskets, shotguns, pistols, rifles or cannon. None. No ammunition was forbidden. Not ball, chain or grapeshot. No weapon was forbidden. The US Constitution was not ammended to ensure hunters could harvest food, or that homeowners could defend their homes. It was not even proposed so individual citizens could defend their lives, although those are all fringe benefits. The second amendment was proposed and ratified to provide the means of the citizens of the United States to rise up and use whatever force necessary to again secure their freedom if the US government ever became tyrannical.

Ira Goldberg is no constitutional scholar. Perhaps banning lunacy would be a better option. Of course, then there would be no Ira Goldbergs.