Excerpts:
The NRA has previously provided and could continue their valuable service of teaching adolescents and adults how to safely handle firearms. The NRA can educate young adults that firearms are not play toys, should only be used on a human perpetrator when necessary to protect other human life, and that despite the attractiveness of automatic weapons they are neither safe, necessary, nor prescribed in protecting one’s constitutional rights. Flaunting 20 acres of weapons at the NRA’s Dallas national convention and parading politicians babbling accolades that “it’s not the guns, it’s the people” while ironically refusing to consider background checks on people buying weapons not only ignores the Constitution but also further exposes current and future generations to continued gun violence.
… we need to demand our elected representatives prohibit the sale and/or exchange of automatic and military-type firearms and designate use of such as a felony. Had the writers of the Constitution been able to envision today’s firearms technology, there is no doubt that personal use of automatic weapons and accessories would have been banned. The Declaration of Independence’s “right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” precedes the Constitution, therefore ensuring those rights a-priori. One pistol and one rifle provides for one’s need to defend their home. If a hunter, then that individual needs to choose which game animals they will hunt and select an appropriate, single-shot rifle for that game, returning sport to hunting.
If our elected representatives choose to not follow the directives of the Constitution and/or they accept campaign money or favors from the NRA or associates, then we need to vote them out of office. ….
Read the full editorial: Coconino Voices: Constitution, in context, limits right to bear arms by Gerald Bacon (a US Army Master Sergeant Marksmanship Instructor) and Bryan Bates (a former NRA Hunter Safety Instructor)
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