LETTER: Right to bear arms more than just hunting

In response to the printed letter from Mr. Paul Constantino entitled “Freedoms are not limitless” published in the April 7 edition of The Progress:

With regard to our freedoms as articulated in the American Bill of Rights, of all the Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms that our Founding Fathers so wisely codified on our behalf the one freedom that seems to resonate (read: cause lively discussion) more so than our other freedoms is the right afforded to lawful American citizens in good standing to “keep and bear arms.”

If taken at face value our right to keep and bear arms is second only to our right to engage in free speech (both individually and via freedom of the press), and as a great many Constitutional scholars have historically opined it is not by accident that the American right to own firearms is second only to our right to engage in free speech.

So much can be said, and has already been said, about the rationality of comparing the firearms of 1776 to the arms of today as an issue of debate re: how much more threatening modern firearms are now than they were 245 years ago. The counter to this logic is that our 1st Amendment rights have survived the advent of high-speed printing presses, the Internet, as well radio and TV, et al.

Many anti-gun modernists are fond of saying that America today has gone way beyond the intent of allowing citizens to own firearms for their use in traditional hunting and target shooting, but the undisputed and rarely-mentioned fact is that our 2nd Amendment is not about sport or hunting.

If you take a moment to crunch the numbers every single law-abiding American who legally owns a firearm represents exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned, to wit a large and peaceful armed citizenry that carries the responsibility given to them by our Bill of Rights.

As has been stated before in every way possible: the American right to own a firearm is not about hunting, in much the same way that our right to free speech and freedom of the press are not just about opinions that you agree with.

Fred Romero
Mesquite, NV