Bodhi Mickie has family members and friends who take their Second Amendment rights seriously, among them some with open-carry licenses. But none, I know, would consider equating those rights with what took place in Las Vegas a couple of days ago.
First of all, the Second Amendment is not an open-ended invitation to acquire firearms. It was intended only to allow enough of same to provide the material for a well-regulated militia, something the British government had frowned upon among its colonies. The Amendment reads:
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.
Note there's no mention of semi-automatic weapons, let alone automatic ones that can support 1000-round ammunition clips. Yet it's formidable items like those that have come to distinguish the United States in the eyes of the world. Know this - we own nearly half of all civilian-owned guns on the planet. We're waaay ahead of the pack, with 310 million firearms; India is a distant second with about 46 million.
Not the kind of statistic one can be proud of ...
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