Reader Roy H. writes:
Congress established the National Constitution Center and they just unveiled their new “Interactive Constitution” website at constitutioncenter.org where you can read oppposing viewpoints from top legal scholars about the constitution and amendments. They obviously have a 2nd Amendment page where a liberal gets to spill his anti-gun blather and a conservative gets to defend gun rights. But the middle of the road article had one point that kind of upsets me . . .
“Furthermore, eighteenth century civilians routinely kept at home the very same weapons they would need if called to serve in the militia, while modern soldiers are equipped with weapons that differ significantly from those generally thought appropriate for civilian uses. Civilians no longer expect to use their household weapons for militia duty, although they still keep and bear arms to defend against common criminals (as well as for hunting and other forms of recreation).”
So the gun grabbers take away our ability to have full auto M16s and M4s. And they dismiss the 2nd Amendment as unnecessary because civilians wouldn’t expect to take the guns that are legal for them to own into battle since the civilian guns aren’t as battleworthy as the M16s and M4s the government is allowed to have.
See what they did there?
The post doesn’t mention that millions of AR15s, AKs, and other semi-auto rifles that have been sold to civilians would have been select fire and would have been “worthy to take into combat” had the government not prevented people from owning them in the first place.
The truth is, the millions of civilians would do just fine using their personally-owned weapons in the service, if needed. The civilians would, in fact, be better armed and prepared than the average Army specialist who’s stuck with an rifle that’s had any number of prior users ahead of him who did God knows what with it.