Letters to the editor for Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Demolishing the Second Amendment will only inspire tyranny

The Second Amendment to our Constitution protects gun ownership; however, liberals say modern life demands it be eliminated and guns confiscated.

The founding fathers did not put the Second Amendment into the Constitution — the people did. After the Constitutional Convention, the new Constitution was put to a vote. During the debate, opposition to the Constitution won minds arguing the new document gave the central government too much power. It began to look like we would continue with the Articles of Confederation.

To swing the debate their way, the supporters of the new Constitution promised to add a series of rights limiting government power, and the Second Amendment was among them. After the Constitution won approval, the Bill of Rights was adopted. Thus, the Second Amendment was a right added by the people.

Every one of the rights given in the Bill of Rights limits government power. The reason for the Second Amendment is no different; it is the right to resist government with armed force. Unique in the world, then and now, we alone have a written guarantee that we can resist an overly powerful government with force of arms — the Second Amendment. Just like our revolutionary forefathers.

The utopians who want to limit or remove this right forget that government is evil, and evil people can assume power and crush citizens, like Venezuela. But crushing our citizens will be much harder, because we are armed.

Demolishing the Second Amendment will only inspire tyranny.

Alan Dale Daniel

Dayton