Day in the life of Dr. Joe

In horror I read of the three guns carried by the Connecticut mass murderer. One gun was not yet identified in the press. The other two were a Glock handgun and a Sig Sauer semiautomatic rifle, favorites of military and law enforcement and gun enthusiasts for their “stopping power” and reliability. I visited the link to a gun enthusiasts’ video on the Sig Sauer, capable of firing faster than ten shots in a second and firing a bullet that causes a half inch entry wound with an exit wound the size of a basketball.

I could not help but see in my heart and mind the bodies of schoolchildren dead with exit wounds the size of basketballs.
It is very hard not to die when shot at close range with a Sig Sauer or a Glock.
I then searched for “constitutional legal arguments against gun control” and read several long legal briefs published in a number of law journals and reviews. I was impressed with the erudition. I was surprised by the gist of the arguments: our right to bear arms is historically necessary.
When the Bill of Rights was written, we had just triumphed in a war for independence from the rule of a perceived tyrannical king of a vast empire. We the people had no established army: we were a rag-tag rebellion, primarily fighting as militias, armed with our own firearms. True, an army and even a navy were cobbled together, but the war was fought by citizen soldiers of local organized militias.
When the Bill of Rights was written, we feared tyranny and we feared that a clever tyrant would protect his reign by limiting our ability to defend ourselves. Lest we fall prey to homegrown or foreign tyranny, we insisted on the necessity of militias. We needed to be able to arm ourselves to protect ourselves. The second amendment to the constitution gives us the undeniable right to bear arms so that we can form militias to protect ourselves from such an eventuality.
And so that she could be part of a militia to protect we the people, the middle aged mother of her matricidal and innocent-murdering son owned three or more weapons of great firing speed and reliability and stopping power in order that she be at the ready to ward off tyranny and protect the American Way?
I do not think so.

• We do NOT have the constitutional right to own guns for individual self-protection.
• We do NOT have the constitutional right to own guns for hunting for sport or food.
• We do NOT have the constitutional right to own guns for a pretty collection.
• We do NOT have the constitutional right to own guns just because we want to own guns.

We DO have the constitutional right to own guns so that we may form militias.
Militias may exist to protect us from the government if it were to become corrupt and threaten our liberties or our lives. Militias may exist to support the government if the formed military is inadequate to the task of protecting us from outside threats.
I, for one, cannot see that these beliefs are at all central to the belief or practice of the vast majority of gun owners.
I, for one, cannot see and that this precept is at all meaningful or at all viable in the United States of America of today.