Right to Bear Arms

This morning there was an alarming news bulletin which showed a man with an assault weapon slung over his shoulder. The caption read, "Man carries assault rifle to Obama protest--and it is legal." Apparently this display is not an isolated incidence. What is of concern is not that there are some who disagree with President Obama on other issues and want to show it, or that there are those who feel individuals should have the right to own firearms. I may not agree with that position, because I know human beings are flawed, have imperfect judgement, and some people who have guns perhaps are playing with less than a full deck. And things happen....

To my knowledge there has been no movement to change the Second Amendment. I wonder why these folks, who are trotting out their arms, feel threatened. Carrying assault weapons in public feels to me like a bullying tactic. And that action makes me wonder about the mental stability and clarity of the weapons owners. CNN carried this quote from one of the protesters; "I come from another state where 'open carry' is legal, but no one does it, so the police don't really know about it and they harass people, arrest people falsely. I think that people need to get out and do it more so that they get kind of conditioned to it." I am not sure why this man thinks we need to get conditioned to it or why he feels that needs to carry a weapon in the open.

The right to keep and bear arms emanates from English common law of 1181, where Henry II required knights and freemen to keep arms and to bear them in service of the king. The English Bill of Rights in 1689 changed the law so that Englishmen needed to have "arms suitable for their own defense, regardless of their social and economic station", which left the defense of the nation to subjects and not to the monarch. Our Bill of Rights was written at a time when it was necessary for all to be able to own and carry weapons. Now a days it seems to me more of a liability than a necessity. I think it comes down to this question. Is an individual's right more important than a group's right? The answer is personal, but affects many.