Talking guns - again

"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."

In the shadow of the slaughtering of 12 innocents in Colorado last Friday morning it is inevitable that the roar of the gun control debate would become deafening. Those who put the right to bear arms above the right to live are the most deafening.

I believe in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution gives each of us the right to keep and bear arms.  And the Supreme Court has in recent years uphold the individual right to keep and bear arms for home defense and for hunting.  If a robber - or a deer - breaks into your home and threatens your home, I say it's your right to aim straight and drop him where he stands.

How many robbers and deer are we trying to drop with assault rifles though? And are the deer firing back? Is that why we need bulletproof vests?

Not only couldn't the Founding Fathers have known that there would be assault rifles firing off 100 rounds per minute, they certainly did not envision that unstable individuals would be able to use the internet to  acquire enough fire power to arm a small town police department.  If they had, I'm pretty sure they would have expected us all to use our common sense and implement fail-safes to protect high school and college students, train riders, and theater-goers from being cut down while minding their own business.  The gun lobby's persistent suggestion that our best protection is to have bigger guns than the bad guys is foolhardy and suicidal.  If there had been return fire in the Aurora theater how many more lives would have been lost?

Restricting access to high-powered rifles, high capacity drum magazines, explosives, and flesh-ripping bullets cannot be seen as equivalent with impinging on the intent of the Second Amendment.  We should not be ignoring the Supreme Court's ruling that state and federal governments have the right to monitor and regulate arms sales. We should not be cowering from the gun lobby, but rather we should be letting common sense prevail. The Second Amendment should not threaten my right to life, health and a good movie.