FoxNews.com Columnist Attacks Bob Costas For Correctly Drawing Connection Between Guns And Murder

[dballance]

19. Okay, here it is.

The NRA and Pro-Gun people seem to read the 2nd Amendment as prohibiting any restrictions on gun ownership. Even Scalia has implied this is not true. The 2nd Amendment was written at a time when we had no standing army and, in fact, the founders really were afraid of establishing a standing army because it might become a de facto branch of government without it really being authorized. Seems their worst fears have come true.

Historically, the 2nd Amendment was meant to allow state militias to exist with guns to defend from the possible tyranny of an overly zealous federal government. Just as the colonies had parted with the King because of his taxing policies. It was not meant as a blank check for any and everyone to have semi-automatic weapons with hundred-round magazines. Rifles and hand-guns at the time the 2nd Amendment was written were rather difficult weapons to load and fire. It took time to pack in the powder, the wad and the ball in either type of weapon. One could not kill several people in the blink of an eye using the then-current weapons.

If you want to go with the Scalia type of interpretation of the constitution and base it on what the founders meant at the time they wrote it then all the semi-automatic hand-guns and all the advanced rifles like the AK-47 would not be allowed to be in the hands of private citizens because they didn't exist at the time the 2nd Amendment was written. Therefore, the Constitution does not apply to them.

So when the NRA uses the text of the 2nd Amendment to justify anyone having any kind of gun they are really being a bit disingenuous by ignoring the historical context surrounding it.