The Second Amendment should be repealed

I wanted to include this entire graphic, but it was simply
too large — even after I zoomed all the way out. So
this is only a small screenshot of it. Kudos to Upworthy
for this disturbing visual.

There is no constitutional right to own or drive a car. Nor should there be. Driver education teachers make sure that 16-year-olds know this in no uncertain terms: Driving is a privilege at any age, and if you abuse it, it can be suspended or revoked, and your car can be confiscated.

There is no constitutional right to purchase or drink alcohol. Nor should there be. Courts can and do order individuals not to imbibe if they’ve committed crimes while doing so.

Hell, there’s not even a constitutional right to smoke cigarettes, own property, or be naked in public (though some places are decidedly more lax than others about the third practice).

But there is a constitutionally protected right to own a deadly weapon with little or no restriction or oversight (at least according to recent interpretations of the Second Amendment).

Now, I’m sure this may have made sense in some era (or universe), but it’s certainly not the one we inhabit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that no one should ever be able to own or carry a gun of any type, at any time, for any reason, in any location. I’m not targeting legitimate gun enthusiasts, hunters, law enforcement agents, or those who want to keep a firearm in their home for protection.

I’m also not suggesting we should start taking away guns already owned by responsible people just to express our disdain for them.

I am saying that gun ownership should never have been enshrined as an inherent right in our nation’s most sacred of documents, next to all of the other freedoms we hold so dear — like my freedom to express this unpopular opinion on my blog.

I am saying that we should scrap a constitutional amendment exploited by monied gun lobbyists and their puppet politicians to scuttle even the most reasonable, commonsense legal restrictions on firearms.

I am saying that someone in a position of leadership needs to work up the balls to admit that the Second Amendment is simply bad policy. Sadly, that won’t be our president.

And I am saying that guns, for whatever useful purposes they hold, are also responsible for creating unimaginable carnage across this country all the time. Sandy Hook and Aurora have become household names; but those tragically aren’t even the tip of the iceberg.

This Huffington Post graphic illustrates the gun deaths that have taken place across the United States
since the December 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

In the months since Newtown, I’ve heard activists dismissively quip that we should ban cars, because they, too, take lives. I think this unintentionally brings up an excellent point: Operation of a motor vehicle on a public road is a strictly regulated activity, for good reason; and for good reason, it’s not a constitutional right.

Neither should guns be, as evidenced by the graphic above. (It’s also worth noting that cars are created for a purpose that has nothing to do with destroying property or life.)

What if car ownership and driving both were constitutional rights, and accordingly, lawmakers refused to consider training, licensing, speed limits, mandatory safety belt use, DUI laws, or any other regulations or restrictions, saying criminals wouldn’t obey them anyway, and they’d do nothing but infringe upon the constitutional rights of drivers?

Would anyone take this seriously? Why, then, do we take Wayne LaPierre seriously when he spews his similarly imbecilic arguments?

To law-abiding firearm owners, I say this: Think of your guns like you do your cars. To the extent that you continue to own and operate them responsibly, you shouldn’t worry about them being confiscated, no matter how much paranoid delusion you’re fed by the NRA.

But you also shouldn’t view either one as an unalienable, God-given right. That’s just asinine.

As long as we think that way, we’re shutting the door on even the most mind-numbingly obvious laws that could help reduce the bloodshed represented on the map. And as long as we head down that path, the map will continue to turn bright red.

I’d love to see the Second Amendment go away someday. Sadly, it will not.