Second Amendment - Topic 5

 

2nd Amendment, not Applicable in Special locations? - Topic 5

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This one should be easy but as stated before, nothing about the second amendment is easy.

What I have read with only minimal research (Google research so it must be true!) is that state and federal legislation on this is all over the map - literally. That goes for almost everything about the 2nd Amendment.

So here are some places where I would suggest guns should be prohibited. When reading them ask yourselves "Would the authors of the Second have any reason to disagree with these?" Federal laws are consistent with many of them. In many locations State laws are not:

• government buildings. (Some states restrict carrying in some state buildings but not others)
• courthouses
• schools
• hospitals
• airports and planes (other than security forces)
• bars or any other places where people and their emotions are liable to be under the influence of a substance like alcohol or drugs including sporting events
• any private business or property where the owner decides to disallow guns. This latitude is constantly under attack
• banks
• police stations
• churches
• parks
• public transit
• nudist colonies (just kidding to see if you got this far)

Even where these apply there are differences regarding concealed or open carry restrictions. What difference does this make? Is the thinking that if you can carry an open weapon the other guy/girl has a better chance of reaching theirs if they see you reaching for yours? Sound like Dodge City? 

My take on this is something that applies to all of these locations. Turn it around and ask why does anyone require a gun in any of these locations? The answer for the gun owners/lovers will always be for protection - against some other person.

If fear of the other person is the big issue, then I have two suggestions, expensive as they might be.1) Such locations all have securely locked entrances. 2) An armed guard searches/scans for weapons outside that entrance with mandatory temporary surrender of weapons until the owners leave. The weapons would be locked up and only the guard could unlock them.

One more idea would be to work towards standardizing all of these locations and restrictions across federal and state jurisdictions. Then at least everyone would have to abide by one set of rules.

This leaves one more topic - 6 - before summarizing the entire subject and possibly making suggestions.

#thebrewsterblock