Gun Control

I grew up in a small rural town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia. Our town was on a ridge and we could see the blue mountains rising up above us in the distance, ten to twenty miles away or more, In winter they ould sometimes be capped with snow. And their blue color made them always look beautiful and comforting. Because we were so near the mountains, their was a lot of hunting in the forests and smaller hills near the mountains, Almost everyone hunted. And almost everyone had guns. Rifles for deer hunting to shoot small animals that might threaten the livestock. Shotguns for rabbits, squirrels and birds. There were quail and ducks for food.
People also had pistols. They were for self-defense. No one used pistols to hunt, except a few who used them to hunt wild hogs. They liked the sport and the danger.

My dad had been robbed a few times at the service station he owned and ran starting in his late teens. It was bought with the help of his two older brothers. Their dad was a farmer who owned forty acres, most of it was pasture and trees. Where they got the money to buy the station is another story. But it had to do with serving a market in Atlanta for inexpensive whiskey..

Guns in rural areas were a necessity, for farmers who hardly grew enough crops to market for necessities, aud hunting would provide meat and protein for the table to supplement the corn bread made from growing corn, eaten with milk from the cows kept on the small pastures.

Those guns were rifles and shotguns. Pistols are another matter. They were not hunting guns. They were used for self-protection in homes and stores, protection against other men using pistols for robberies. My dad always had pistols loaded and nearby, under the counters that held his goods to be sold. But they never prevented any of the robberies. His pistols  were always too far out of reach, and they never helped him.

Pistols in cities likewise have little use. They are often out of reach when needed, or used accidentally, or against innocent people taken for intruders, resulting in horrible tragedies.
Our second amendment protects our right to keep and bear arms. It does not give us that right, the language assumes that right already existed. From what source of genesis the amendment does not say. An inalienable right, one must assume is what they meant.

They protected this right because in those days, the militia as composed of citizens, who when called out to duty brought their own guns. The authors of the second amendment wanted to be certain these men would have gun to bring with them, so that the states would have an armed militia, to be used at the order of the federal government.

The amendment says the right shall not be infringed. Seems like it has been. Arm cannot be kept and born without permit and license. Certain types of weapons have been banned. The right to keep nd bear arms is clearly not without restriction, or if you like, without infringement.

The recent rampages and killings have brought gun control into focus. people clamor about assault weapons and want to ban them. They want background checks and limits on ownership.

I think that is reasonable.  People with criminal records or mental illness should not be allowed to buy guns.  No guns should be sold without those background checks.

There are also cries for the ban of assault weapons.  I don’t think that is the issue.  The issue is not the definition of an assault weapon but the issue is how many times a citizen should be able to fire without being able to reload.  It does not matter if the gun is an assault rifle, a sport rifle, a hunting rifle, or a pistol, the issue is how many times does it fire without reloading.  That is the issue we should be discussing instead of trying to define and outlaw assault weapons.

I believe future sales of high-capacity magazines should ve banned.  We need to decide what size should be allowed.  Ten rounds or fifteen?  I think  fifteen is not unreasonable.  Some people say ten.

People in my home county should be happy with that restriction.  Deed rifles need only a few rounds to fire.  The deer scatter,  So do small animals, and birds fly away.

The state militias are not formed now by men who bring their own rifles and pistols.  States have organized militia .  The members do not take the weapons home.  They are kept locked up in the armories.

Times have changed since the second amendment was written.  We don’t need to keep and bear arms to maintain  state militia.   We need guns for self-protection, sport and hunting.

Ir’s time we think about who can own guns, and how many rounds a person should be able to fire without reloading.  The enemy, if there is one, is guns in the hands of the wrong people, and allowing high-capacity magazines that allow too many rounds to be fired before reloading.

It’s time for serious thought and action by our congress and state legislatures.