The US House has done a bold move (or is it?)…..

The House passed legislation Friday to revive a ban on certain semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years and a direct response to the firearms often used in the crush of mass shootings ripping through communities nationwide. Once banned in the US, the high-powered firearms are now widely blamed as the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. But Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban. Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democratic-run House, saying the earlier ban “saved lives.”

President Biden hailed the House vote, saying, “The majority of the American people agree with this common sense action.” He urged the Senate to “move quickly to get this bill to my desk.” However, it is likely to stall in the 50-50 Senate, the AP reports. The House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Almost all Republicans voted against the House bill, which passed 217-213. The bill comes at a time of intensifying concerns about gun violence and shootings—the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, NY; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the July Fourth shootings of revelers in Highland Park, Ill.

The bill would make it unlawful to import, sell, or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons. Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, said it includes an exemption that allows for the possession of existing semi-automatic guns. Reps. Chris Jacobs of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania were the only Republicans to vote for the measure. The Democratic lawmakers voting no were Reps. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas. Among the semi-automatic weapons banned would be some 200-plus types of semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s, and pistols. The restrictions would not apply to many other models.

Was this just a move to garner support for the upcoming election…..we all know that it will not fly in the Senate…..so what was this passing all about.

Then there will be the debate on the 2nd amendment……

I know–I know—-haven’t we had enough debate on the guns thing?

I say no because it is an issue that needs resolving one way or the other……

There have been more mass shootings in the last five years than in any other five-year span since 1996.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are injured or killed, there have been 2,403 mass shootings from 2017 to 2021, with 2,495 dead and 10,225 injured. The group’s data reveals a steep rise in recent years: 692 mass shootings in 2021, up 66% from 2019’s total of 417.

As of July 6, the group has recorded 320 mass shootings, putting 2022 on track to finish as one of the deadliest years in US history.

According to the CDC, 124 people die every day in the US in acts of gun violence.

Time for a re-think?

Years ago I made my thoughts known to my readers on the 2nd amendment……

Why The 2nd?

But that is just my opinion on the creation of this amendment….but let’s look deeper shall we?

Amid today’s heated debates about gun laws and the Second Amendment, what many people may not realize is that the phrase “the right to keep and to bear arms” is older than the Bill of Rights. It was penned years before the United States won its independence from England. 

In 1779, Founding Father and future president John Adams wrote this phrase at his law office in Quincy, Mass., as he drafted the Massachusetts Constitution — the oldest in the world. He did so a decade before the phrase appeared in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

James Madison argued on behalf of an armed citizenry as a bulwark to federal overreach in Federalist No. 46, published in 1788 as debate took place over shape of the new American government.

A national army of 25,000 to 30,000 men “would be opposed by a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands,” wrote the statesman often dubbed “Father of the Constitution.”

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/gun-laws-story-right-keep-bear-arms

That was from the FOX point of view…..now let’s look elsewhere…..

The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1791, reads: “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.” Responsible readings of this sentence note that it locates gun rights within the framework of militia service, not as an individual entitlement. By contrast, the 5th Amendment, ratified the same year, says that “No person” shall be denied due process.

Militias aside, there is also the “keep and bear” part of the 2nd Amendment to consider. In the founders’ era, to “keep” meant to own and possess something inside one’s home, while “bear arms” referred specifically to shouldering a musket or rifle in an army or militia.

Nowhere does the amendment declare or suggest a right to “go armed,” the term used in that era for carrying a weapon such as a pistol or dagger, either openly or in secret. Going armed was not legal. It was a form of misdemeanor known as an affray, from the French effrayer, to make afraid. Indeed, many of the new states responded to a disturbing rise in violence in the early republic with more restrictions on those carrying firearms and other weapons.

In part, that uptick in violence can be attributed to dueling, an aristocratic custom that the haughty officers of the Continental Army learned from their British and French peers. While duelists at least had the decency to count 10 paces and take aim before firing, the so-called “blades” of the southwestern frontiers simply swaggered around with pistols and cane swords, demanding that everyone treat them like royalty on pain of a beating or shooting.

Contrary to romantic mythologies about the frontier, neither duelists nor blades were very popular. Then as now, most people just wanted to go about their lives without getting shot, stabbed or bullied. And they were willing to stand up for their right to do so.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-06-22/gun-rights-control-second-amendment-supreme-court

Just a few more looks into the 2nd amendment….will this end the conversation (if it can be called that)?  Probably not but all aspects of this amendment should be studied.

There has got be common ground and soon…..for daily mass shootings keep happening and we are basically shrugging them off and moving on to something else.

Hopefully you will give the articles a read….and hopefully engage your brain for deeper thought that the shallowness we have today around guns.

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“lego ergo scribo”