My Turn: The Second Amendment protects ‘lawful weapons’ in ‘common use’ – Concord Monitor

Published: 3/10/2021 7:25:12 AM

In his My Turn op-ed, (Monitor, March 1), James Fieseher contends that the same insurrectionists who brought pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails to the Capitol on Jan. 6, were too afraid of D.C.s gun laws to bring their firearms. Dr. Fieseher concludes from this that firearms regulations save lives.

He also sees the Second Amendments call for a well regulated militia as an invitation for us to heap on new gun control regulations.

There are problems with both of these assertions. First of all, Dr. Fiesehers reasoning that the same people who brought bombs to the Capitol in order to overthrow the government were somehow too law abiding to bring a firearm is preposterous. There was only one reported discharge of a firearm during the riot, and that was when a Capitol policemen shot and killed an unarmed women. Its more than likely that most of the rioters acted spontaneously, and were unarmed.

Secondly, when the founders were debating the Second Amendment, the term well regulated Militia had more to do with equipment and training, than the misconstrued definition of piling on more gun regulations. In other words, a more precise reading is: A well (equipped and trained) Militia. In his Aug. 3, 2016, My Turn, Welcome to the militia, former NH Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas states: The US Supreme Court also said that the conception of the Militia at the time of the Second Amendments ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. Furthermore, the US Supreme Court has defined lawful weapons as those that are in common use, which would include the AR15, the most popular rifle platform in the country.

Years ago, there was a famous law review article entitled, The Embarrassing Second Amendment. The authors, who were not pro-gun, concluded that for better or worse, the Second Amendment basically means what it says, namely, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

(Mike Briggs of Hopkinton is the former Director of Competitive Shooting at the SIG SAUER Academy, and a past President of Pioneer Sportsmen club in Dunbarton. He currently owns and operates New England Tactical, which specializes in firearm safety and proficiency training.)

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My Turn: The Second Amendment protects 'lawful weapons' in 'common use' - Concord Monitor