In the Editor’s Notebook dated May 2, David Crisp misreads gun owners and the situation entirely.
Any attempt to repeal the Second Amendment requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures and the amendment has to pass three-fourths of the states. That isn’t easy, regardless of what Thomas Jefferson thought.
The history of the Second Amendment included legislative attempts to ban firearms. The reasonable anti-gun people want to take the power out of the Second Amendment instead of repealing it. What if the 13th amendment, the abolition of slavery, had the history of the Second Amendment?
Would David Crisp brand the 13th Amendment defenders as worshipers of a sacrosanct document? Or would he see the attempt to reintroduce slavery as outrageous?
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., once said that if she could have achieved what she wanted, she would have said, “Mister and Mrs. America: Turn in your guns.”
What if the 19th Amendment, women’s suffrage, had the history of the Second amendment? Would Ms. Feinstein like to hear someone say, “If I could have my way, I would say, ‘Ladies, go home! You don’t have a say in the future of this country!” Or would she see that idea as outrageous and fight against it with everything in her power?
Gun owners don’t expose their throats to wolves. They don’t disarm unilaterally in the face of their enemies, and they don’t trust anti-gun people who describe themselves as reasonable.
Would Mr. Crisp have even written this opinion if the 13th or the 19th amendments were at stake?