The 2nd Amendment — Words Matter
During Gun Control arguments, the gun people always whine about their 2nd Amendment rights being taken away. This has never made a lot of sense to me.
The 2nd Amendment says:
“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.”
Leaving the confusing language about militias out for a moment, you’ll notice that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t use the words “guns.” Instead, we have the right to “bear arms.”
But in practice, that’s not the case. There are plenty of arms we don’t have the right to bear. Civilians can’t buy grenades, or tanks, or fighter jets. If we were interpreting the amendment literally, we would be allowed to head down to Dick’s Sporting Goods and buy ourselves a cruise missile.
Thankfully, we are not. In reality, we have the right to bear arms up to a certain point — that point is not mentioned in the Constitution anywhere. As a society, we interpret where that point is. Currently, that point is semi-automatic assault rifles with bump stocks. Those are the most deadly “arms” a civilian can buy.
And because, as a society, we have decided where this point is — we can change it.
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