In response to Alexandra Petri’s Sept. 6 column, “The things we must give up,” she paints a grim picture of living a life in heavy armor in order to stay safe in case of a mass shooting.
She ends the article with the suggestion of a much smaller sacrifice, which can only be interpreted as tweaking and tightening the interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Here’s the entire Second Amendment: “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.”
Are there any state militias, well-regulated or otherwise? The sale of guns is out of control, as is the interpretation of the Second Amendment.
The framers of the Constitution were fresh off a revolution. They wanted citizens to protect themselves, and to protect against the quartering of soldiers in private homes, which is actually the subject of the Third Amendment.
The framers did not, and could not, contemplate automatic weapons, or an NRA with too much control over candidates and elections.
We can protect the Second Amendment and people, too. There is a lot of leeway in the plain language of the Second Amendment. We can certainly ban automatic rifles and still be true to the amendment.
For the hunters, make it a sport and not a massacre.
Judith F. Zuckert, Sandy