The Truth about the Second Amendment

From Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law at Mic.com:

The founders would look at us today and be very puzzled. The idea that anybody could get a weapon of war, walk into a school and shoot it up, I think they would that was crazy.

What’s the exact wording of the Second Amendment? It’s very short. “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.” And we’ve been debating about what that means for centuries.

The founders thought that the Second Amendment was about protecting against tyranny. They really thought that these militias of citizen soldiers could stand up to a potentially tyrannical central government. But they thought, as they said, that they had to be well-regulated, they had to be following the laws.

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Why Are Gun Rights Groups Putting Guns Ahead of Children?

boywithgun

With the shooting attacks on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, as well as on law enforcement officers in Indiana, Florida, and Michigan, it’s hard to argue that one of America’s most pressing problems is not enough access to guns. Yet a proposed law in Florida would do just that, with a cruel bonus: it puts children at special risk of taking a bullet.

State Rep. Jason Brodeur (R-Sanford) is behind a bill that would make it a felony for a pediatrician to ask parents if there are guns in the house, and if so, how they are secured. If the doctor is found guilty of asking these questions, the penalty would be a $5 million fine and up to five years in prison.

Surely we have lost our minds.

A proposed Florida law would make it a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $5 million fine for pediatricians to ask parents if they lock up their guns

In a one-week period in my part of the state, close enough geographically for both stories to be reported by the same local news outlets, two children found guns that the adults who were responsible for them failed to secure. The first incident resulted in a 6-year-old girl shot in the chest.

According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, when officers first questioned Donnell Burney in the emergency room, he told them he was in front of the house when he heard the gunshot and saw his daughter outside the house holding her side.

According to the arrest report, Burney later told homicide investigators he was cleaning his handgun in the kitchen and left it on the counter when he went to another room.

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