The Second Amendment

Last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech University has cast a renewed focus on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its guarantee of our right to arm ourselves.

The Rascal, for one, says that right should be completely unfettered. There's nothing in the amendment that allows for any exceptions. The wording is crystal clear: "(T)he right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

I see nothing about exceptions for certain kinds of weapons. It doesn't say that we can have only rifles and shotguns, but not handguns. It doesn't say we can't have machine-guns or so-called assault weapons. It doesn't specify exceptions for any kind of arms. In other words, a law-abiding citizen with no record of mental illness should be free to obtain whatever weapons he or she desires.

If we allow the government to start chipping away at this right, our fundamental freedoms will be compromised. We should never say to ourselves: "Well, okay, certain reasonable limits on our right to keep and bear arms can be imposed." But who decides what's "reasonable"? Teddy Kennedy? Nancy Pelosi? At the end of that road lies tyranny.

No exceptions means no exceptions. In other words, if I want to own landmines, bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades -- even a nuclear device -- that's my business.

Oh, you say that rocket-propelled grenades and nuclear devices is going too far? You say that we have to draw a line somewhere? Well, then, you're obviously ready to concede that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what us purists say it means? You're willing to draw lines. You're willing to tell the government that it's all right, in the interest of public safety, to impose limits on the ownership of weapons.

What are you? Some kind of liberal?