MS Speaks

A terrorist gunman claiming ties with ISIS has killed 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida.

The New York Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/orlando-shooting-what-we-know-and-dont-know.html?_r=0

The gunman's terrorist connections are cause for real concern. The fact that he targeted a group that has already been the victim of countless vicious attacks--the gay community--is cause for extreme concern.

There is also this concern:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Mr. Mateen had legally bought both weapons used in the attack, a handgun and a long gun, in Florida within the last week.... He was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun.

When is this country going to smarten up?

Firearms have changed radically since the Second Amendment was written.

The whole political and societal scene in this country has changed radically since the Second Amendment was written. In the 18th century the American frontier was around New York state, geographically. It gradually moved west, but by 1893 in his famous paper, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History,"Frederick Jackson Turner was declaring the closing of the American frontier. It had reached the Pacific Coast. And that was over 100 years ago.

The Second Amendment's authors did not foresee a day when there would be a question about whether every citizen could own a firearm (or, more likely, several firearms). They were speaking of the small militias that the small communities of the time maintained for their defense. Small community militias aren't the way we're defending ourselves any more. We have the police, the National Guard.

Omar Mateen (the shooter) was a security guard.  A security guard isn't what is meant by a member of a militia in the Second Amendment.

Assault rifles didn't exist when the Second Amendment was written.

A few months ago I wrote a blog review of The Second Amendment: A Biography (2014) by Michael Waldman.
Here is a link to what I said:

http://wordswordswordsbooks.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2005-06-22T20:21:00-07:00&max-results=20&start=18&by-date=false