Guest Comment

A friend sent me his thoughts on the situation in Connecticut - I think it is worth sharing.  He gave me permission to share.

So here's what I propose.

I am not opposed to guns.  Before a disease took over my feet and legs, I thoroughly enjoyed hunting upland game and waterfowl, and enjoyed eating the results of the hunt as well.  I still think pheasant, quail, wild ducks, and wild geese are among the most delectable dinners on earth.

I even have nothing against handguns—in moderation, that is.  I have REAL problems with people who think they need 150 different handguns around the house, but then everything in moderation.

I have REAL problems with people who own guns that are designed only for military use.

But here's what we can do for those people who think they need weapons like that.

In their zeal, they tend to forget that the part of the Second Amendment that allows possession of firearms depends on the first half of the sentence in which it appears:

"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."

The REASON, therefore, that people may "keep and bear arms" is the existence of a "well regulated militia," something missing from the landscape these days.

So let that Newtown shooter's mother collect all the assault weapons she wants to own.  She must agree to be a part of a state militia organized and commanded according to accepted military standards, and commanded by the general in charge of the state's national guard or the meanest retired Marine Master-Sergeant they can find, whichever comes first.

She will attend rigorous military training, including Quentico-level physical training, instruction in the proper use of and care for military weapons, and forced marches with full equipment, and she must do this 26 Saturdays every year, as well as spending two weeks at primitive military camp every summer.

All of this she must do at her own expense, in addition to paying a $10,000 per annum fee for belonging to the militia.

Any civilian use of her assault weapons will result in an automatic sentence of two years at hard labor in a military prison.

These militias could be called out in states of emergency by governors of states, and militia members would be required to pay all of their own expense when thus deployed, as well as to remain under strict command of their superior officers.  At least 20 years of regular military field service would be required of every officer above the rank of sergeant.

In addition, the degradation of care for mentally ill people begun under the Reagan administration will be reversed immediately, and all gun owners taxed on a per-weapon basis to pay for adequate care for and treatment of people diagnosed by competent physicians as suffering from mental illness.

Addendum. - Here is an article about Switzerland which goes along with some of the ideas expressed in the above. Click here   -  J