The point of me posting the below letter is so that my friends and family have a website they can come to, copy and paste the message, and send it to their senators and congressmen so that action can be taken on this important topic.
Message:
The topic of the 2nd
Amendment and Gun Control/Rights has not been so heavily in the news as it has
been since 2/14/18. Politicians everywhere are receiving pressure, from all
sides of the debate, to act and act swiftly.
There is something, however,
very important that both sides are missing and it’s that middle ground.
Alexander Hamilton once said “The constitution shall never be construed… to
prevent the people of the United Sates who are peaceable citizens from keeping
their own arms.” Should we banish all guns? No. However, as Hamilton pointed
out, it is the peaceable citizens that should be allowed to keep their own
arms. Currently the laws for obtaining a weapon vary from state to state. But
there is one thing in common: the only thing determining if someone is “peaceable”
is whether or not they have a clean record. In some states you don’t even have
to have a truly clean record. In Wisconsin you can’t own a fire arm if you have
been convicted several times and if you take a plea deal that doesn’t count as
being convicted which extends the amount of time a violent person has to
purchase a gun before that right is stripped.
James Madison wrote “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.” Again, we
are missing a key phrase in his statement: “well-regulated”. Once again, we
live in a time where there is very little regulation on who can purchase guns.
In many places obtaining a concealed carry permit requires a possible 2 hour
course and a clean background check and nothing more. There is no course to
prove you learned anything from that class. No testing to confirm that you are
peaceable and responsible enough to carry the burden of owning such a weapon.
There is little to no regulation at all.
When men and women enter the
military or the police force, they go through rigorous training to ensure they
will be able to handle their heavy responsibility. Many Police Officers receive
over 110 hours of gun training alone. While I am not advocating for this level
of training, we are doing a huge disservice to our citizens and this country to
require no training for gun owners.
When the Founding Fathers
wrote the 2nd amendment, almost everyone owned a gun. Almost
everyone understood the weight of that burden and had entire lifetimes of use
with them. That is no longer the case. We now live in a time and a culture
where a 40 year old can go and purchase a gun without ever seeing one handled
in person or without having any training on how to handle the one they are
purchasing. We have romanticized the gun and its power and have failed to
emphasize how heavy a responsibility owning one is.
It is time we return to what
the Founding Father’s said about guns and hold true to it. We need to ensure
peaceable and well-regulated individuals are allowed their right to bear arms
and non-peaceable and non-regulated individuals are not. The best way to do
this is to require any and all citizens wishing to purchase a firearm of any
type to go through proper training, including psychological screening to ensure
they will be responsible. Once they have passed that test they would be allowed
to purchase any legal fire arm with the stipulation that they must pass the
test again every 5 years in order to maintain the right to own their firearms.
This should not offend the
peace loving citizen that Alexander Hamilton spoke of as they should want to
know that any and all of their fellow armed citizens are just as responsible
and capable as they are. It would also bring confidence to those who choose to
not be armed as they will know the person who is armed has proven they are trustworthy.
This should not offend the
well-regulated citizen that James Madison had in mind when he penned this amendment
as they will have the well placed confidence that they can handle an emergency
when the time comes. It will also bring about confidence to the non-carrying
citizen as they will know that the person coming to the rescue really does know
what they are doing with that fire arm.
Peaceable and Well-regulated
citizens are what we are missing in this current age of gun rights. It is time
to bring that back. We must require gun owners to go through training to prove
that they are peaceable and well-regulated as the Founding Fathers stated.
Sincerely-
