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Second Amendment outlives its purpose

That America stands out in gun-related deaths, where mass shootings have become almost routine, is due to one simple fact, according to gun violence research: There are far too many guns, too easily acquired, in the hands of too many Americans.

America justifies this with the belief that gun ownership is an unalienable right of its citizens. This belief is enshrined in the Second Amendment, which has far outlived its purpose.

Today, anyone who wishes to bear arms to protect the state can join the National Guard. It is a myth that unregulated gun ownership will produce a well regulated Militia necessary to protect freedom.

It is past time to repeal the Second Amendment. It has become the greatest impediment to meaningful gun ownership regulation. Remove this crutch to those Second Amendment politicians who argue that unregulated gun ownership is worth this horrible cost to society.

Arthur Mersereau

Manoa

Consult doctor on allergies to vaccines

With respect for those worried about getting vaccinated because of either underlying conditions or possible allergic reactions, the wisest course would seem to be addressing this directly with your doctor (Those with allergies need vaccine reassurance, Star-Advertiser, Letters, March 25). Ideally this professional has your records, sees you annually and is trained to give you current, correct advice.

As for places that are medically prepared in case of problems, it seems reasonable to assume that the state Department of Health could answer those questions.

Having received my vaccinations at Pier 2, I was thoroughly reassured through the entire process that my well-being was under close observation, including the post-shot monitoring period.

Andrea Bell

Kailua

State keeps changing the rules on vaccines

During the past three months, the state said that people with medical issues will be classified in the 1c category. Now that we are in the 1c category, the state is changing its mind, only allowing people with serious medical issues to get the vaccine.

It also seems that people with these issues arent in the 1c category anymore, having to wait for their age group to get the vaccines. Except for our kupuna, people with medical issues can suffer greatly if they catch COVID-19, possibly even threatening their lives.

It is disappointing that Lt. Gov. Josh Green doesnt help people in this group get their vaccines. As a doctor he should know that this group can suffer if they catch COVID-19. I was hoping that Green wouldnt continue the Ige legacy of being wishy-washy, but he continues the legacy of poor planning and not keeping the public in the decision-making process.

Stan Sano

Makiki

Parentage, not paternity, crucial

The commentary, Birth certificates should identify paternity, not parentage (Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 23) is unsurprisingly sexist. The author said that birth certificates are to identify the biological participants in the creation of the baby.

No, they are not. To frame birth certificates as an inconsequential biological record is lazy and self-serving to those empowered by the traditional family model.

Birth certificates establish parental rights, are critical documentation to travel, provide authority for health care decisions and school applications, just to list a few.

Current laws allow male partners to volunteer their information on birth certificates. Only male partners. To not allow female or non-binary partners this option is outdated and discriminatory. A bill in the Legislature attempts to rectify these current prejudices.

The legislation in question is an intersectional feminist issue, an issue on the financialized penalty imposed on those who exist outside of, and in spite of, gender binaries and patriarchy.

Chauncey Hirose-Hulbert

Manoa

Include parentship on birth certificates

Birth certificates should identify paternity, not parentage (Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 23), was a thoughtful and important article. I support the author.

Instead of ditching paternity in the current formula, why not keep paternity but add parentship as a separate, alternative field on birth certificates?

This subject puts me in mind of a recent article in the Star- Advertiser about COVID-19 vaccines and the difficulty of manufacturing, and shortages of, biologic medications. Why deny future science the possibility of pursuing the biological trail?

Scarlett Zoechbauer

Makiki

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Letters: State keeps changing the rules on vaccines; Second Amendment outlives its purpose; Parentage, not paternity, crucial - Honolulu...

Why protecting the Second Amendment matters

I disagree with the recent letter urging the Tiverton Town Council to rescind the Second Amendment-related resolution passed two years ago. Had the writer researched the resolution, she would have discovered that it did not make Tiverton a sanctuary city.After some emotional testimony by a few individuals predicting that, if made so, the streets would run red with blood, the council adopted a compromise. The resulting resolution became a bulwark against the potential abuse inherent in so-called Red Flag laws, stating that the town will expend no resources in supporting them. It also reaffirmed that the citizens of Tiverton believed in the rule of law, specifically the state and federal constitutions, a concept frightening to progressives.

While red flag laws were sold to legislators by anti-firearms groups as public safety measures,their real intent was the creation of a tool to isolate and persecute individuals who choose to exercise their civil right to own a firearm. They allow anyone to make a phone call claiming someone they know (or don't like) is planning a mass shooting. With no warning, local police then descend on the individual, search their homes, confiscate their private property (firearms), arrest them and begin a lengthy investigation certain to ruin their lives and reputations, whether or not the accusation is true. The accused is never told who their accuser is and there is no penalty for making a false accusation. These are laws with the potential for extreme abuse. They also have the potential for wasting vast amounts of scarce police resources, things the town council, two years ago, recognized. If the current council rescinds the resolution, then theirs is a vote to sanction, and pay for with tax dollars, the persecution of local firearm owners, something that will not endear them to the majority of town residents.

Finally, I infer by the tone of the writer's letter that she is either a member of, or has been influenced by, one of the small, but noisy, anti-Second Amendment groups operating in the state. Her assertion that firearm owners are protected by the Second Amendment is laughable, considering that there are now 11bills (more on the way) in the R.I. Statehouse specifically designed to destroy firearms ownership in this state; all of them crafted with the heavy-handed aid of these groups.

And this prompts a gentle warning to all those reading this. These groups are notorious for lying to and deceiving their members in order to create and spread hysteria, thus advancing the political agenda of their wealthy out-of-state benefactors. Sadly, this callous practice often makes believers look foolish, at best, when faced with the truth.

Scott McCarthy,Tiverton

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OPINION/LETTER: Why protecting the Second Amendment matters - newportri.com

This op-ed by Trish Zornio appeared on Colorado Newsline on March 25, 2021.

This weeks article started out about Colorados response to the pandemic. It was quickly upended on Monday afternoon when less than 15 minutes from my house a massacre unfolded at the local King Soopers. By 2am, 10 of our neighbors were confirmed dead. It was the same store where my roommate had bought groceries a few days prior.

For the last 48 hours or so, my social media feeds have been heavy in sorrow, anger and despair. The feeling of hopelessness looms large, and text messages pour in to ask if Im OK. Most of the time I dont have the energy to explain why although Im safe, Im not all right. Its not just this event, or even that I knew one of the victims. Its that for my generation and the generations after me this already is our normal, and it has been for over 20 years.

I was in middle school when Columbine happened. I remember our teachers talking to us about what it meant, and what we would do if it happened at our school. Now that Im the teacher, students ask me what the escape plan is and its not just teens or young adults. When my nephew started the first grade, he once told me not to worry because now that he was taller he could climb out of the window faster. He was so casual about it, too, like he was talking about growing into the next pant size.

Youd think after growing up with domestic terrorism Id be used to it. Im not. Theres no getting used to the fear it stokes in communities, or the ripple of hurt it causes. It hits me hard every time. But what hurts the most is how little Congress has done to stop it, as if it doesnt matter at all.

Addressing gun violence is no doubt a multifaceted issue, but to suggest gun access isnt part of the problem is to stick ones head in the sand. However, instead of Congress acting, an extremist political right has blocked damn near every effort toward gun safety for decades. Theyve gone so far as to make it illegal for the government to even study the problem, or to enact full background checks. In many places, its now easier to buy a gun than it is to vote.

Today, these right-wing extremists have co-opted the Republican platform. In doing so, they are making a mockery of responsible gun owners. Long gone are the days of Republicans promoting safe storage, safety training and respect for a deadly weapon. Now, a flamboyant cast of disgruntled Trumpers have lined up to sensationalize and fetishize gun appeal as part of a larger, violent and frequently conspiratorial narrative and one of the ring leaders is right here in Colorado.

From lavishing firearms for campaign props to unsafe storage, Rep. Lauren Boebert has used her antics to flout just about every basic principle of gun safety there is. She has blatantly disregarded Capitol Police metal detectors, expressed her intent to (or did) break open carry laws in Washington, D.C., is speculated to have broken House rules by carrying her gun to the floor, added gunshots to campaign ads for bombastic effects, permitted an underage waitress to carry in her restaurant and more. Once, the first-time congresswoman even accepted a firearm as a gift in her official capacity, subjecting herself to extensive ethical and legal scrutiny.

For some, the vigor with which she claims to defend the Second Amendment is exactly the appeal. Yet her ammosexualized performances should rightfully terrify every responsible gun owner in America. By allowing violent extremists to flagrantly toss aside gun safety principles, Republicans have inadvertently accessorized firearms to a point which makes abundantly clear the absurd laxity of our current laws.

In fact, if extremists like Boebert continue to push against any gun safety regulations, Id suggest its precisely the right-wing gun nuts who will ultimately be the downfall of the Second Amendment. They will, in essence, have loved it to death.

Im hardly the first to note extremist escalations require constitutional overhaul. Consider, for example, the remarks by the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who authored an op-ed for The New York Times titled, Repeal the Second Amendment.

In his essay, Stevens essentially argues that due to a case pushed by the National Rifle Association in 2008, the long-held narrow legal interpretation of the Second Amendment has already been compromised. He, and others, suggests the only way to repair this breach and achieve gun regulation is to repeal and replace it with a constitutional amendment.

If that sounds radical, remember that Stevens was a lifelong Republican. Which leads me to suggest that Democrats should claim Stevens argument to highlight how right-wing extremists have effectively destroyed the Second Amendment in the first place.

No one can undo the hurt from the past couple days or the last couple decades, for that matter. But we must act.

If I could, this time Id take aim at 2A.

Special to the Post

The Pagosa Daily Post welcomes submissions, photos, letters and videos from people who love Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Call 970-903-2673 or email pagosadailypost@gmail.com

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OPINION: Loving the Second Amendment to Death - Pagosa Daily Post

On Monday, the House General Laws Committee is hearing House Bill 1068, to ensure Second Amendment rights remain protected during states of emergencies. Please contact committee members and ask them to SUPPORT HB 1068.

House Bill 1068 designates firearm businesses as essential and prohibits the state, government officials and agencies, or local governments from prohibiting, restricting, or reducing their operations during declared states of emergencies or disasters.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many anti-gun officials around the country, at both state and local levels of government, took the opportunity to unilaterally suspend Second Amendment rights by shutting down gun stores and ranges. Unfortunately, this coincided with many Americans trying to exercise their Second Amendment rights for the first time during that period of uncertainty, and resulted in them being unable to access arms, ammunition, or proper training. HB 1068 protects the exercise of a constitutional right from such politically motivated attacks and ensures that citizens have those rights when they need them most.

Again, please contact committee members and ask them to SUPPORT HB 1068.

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Missouri: Committee Hearing Bill to Protect Second Amendment in Emergencies - NRA ILA

Boulder, Colorado mourns the ten people murdered during a shooting rampage inside a King Soopers grocery store. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON With Republicans and Democrats already speeding toward a familiar stalemate over whether to respond to a recent spate of mass shootings, experts on both sides of the debate are predicting the Supreme Court is poised to expand Second Amendment rightsafter a decade-long hiatus from the issue.

The only question, several court observers said, is when.

From a challenge to New York's restrictions on carrying firearms outside a home to cases involving lifetime gun ownership bans for people convicted of certain crimes, the court's months-old 6-3 conservative majority will soon have a number of high-profile opportunities tojumpinto the turbulentnational debate over gun rights.

Four conservative justices alreadysignaled a desire to address outstanding Second Amendment questions, but it's not clear if the recent shootings in Colorado and Georgia will temper that enthusiasm.President Joe Biden has called for a federal responseto the killings and several Republican lawmakers have dismissed the need for stronger gun laws. The court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has sometimes beenhesitant to jump into Washington's raging political battles.

More: Amy Coney Barrett steers the Supreme Court to the right

But even if the court delays, few expect it to wait for long.

"There's no doubt that the Supreme Court is poised to take a Second Amendment case soon," saidAdam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America" and a UCLA School of Law professor. "There's no doubt that there's a majority of justices on the court now who've expressed the desire."

Eight people were killed, including six Asian American women, in a series of shootings March 16 at Atlanta-area spas and massage parlors. Ten people were killed days later in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. The mass killings have quickly snapped Washington's attention back to the deeply partisan gun debate after the issue was sidelined during the coronavirus pandemic.

Local courts: Gun groups findsuccess in blocking local firearm controls

Pause: Supreme Court sidesteps major Second Amendment case, a setback for NRA

The nation's highest court has skirted Second Amendment disputes sinceissuing blockbuster rulings in 2008 and 2010 that struck down gun restrictions in theDistrict of Columbia and Chicago. The justices more recently considered a New York Cityprohibition on gun owners transporting firearms to ranges or second homes outside of the city, but dropped the matter after local officials rolled the regulation back.

Supporters of gun control and firearm safety measures hold a protest rally outside the Supreme Court as the court hears oral arguments in State Rifle and Pistol v. City of New York, NY, in Washington, D.C., on December 2, 2019.(Photo: SAUL LOEB, AFP via Getty Images)

But the dynamic has changed since Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the benchin October. While conservatives previously had the four votes needed to take a case, it wasn't clear whetherRoberts would deliver the fifth vote needed to corral a majority of the nine for a win. Now, with Barretton the court, several experts said, Roberts' vote is no longer as pivotal as it once was.

"While the Supreme Court in the past has held off on taking up Second Amendment cases, we have four justices who have said they're eager to do so and it also appears likely that Justice Barrett is with them," saidHannah Shearer, litigation director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "They're not going to wait forever."

And that has raised alarms for gun control advocates.

Mourners shield the flames of their candles from the wind at a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at a grocery store earlier in the week, Wednesday, March 24, 2021, outside the courthouse in Boulder, Colo. (Photo: David Zalubowski, AP)

Asserting that the court erred when it threw out the claim over New York City's gun transport rule last year, conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch wrotein a dissent that the rule was unconstitutional.Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed to drop the matter but said lower courts may be misapplying the court's precedents and called on his colleagues to "address that issue soon."

Five months after that decision, liberal Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgdied, further shifting the balance of the court to the right.

Barrett, who drew headlines during her confirmation hearing for telling senators her family ownsa gun, has given Second Amendment advocates reason to cheer in the past. In 2019, as a judge on the federal appeals court in Chicago, Barrett dissented from an opinion upholding a law that bans convicted felons from owning a gun.

The Wisconsin man who challenged the law,Rickey Kanter, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. Barrett wrote in her dissent that the ban went too far when applied to someone who had not been convicted of a violent crime.

"History is consistent with common sense: It demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns," she wrote. "But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons."

President Donald Trump granted Kanter a pardon in December.

Two similar questions are now awaiting consideration at the Supreme Court. In one, a Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in 2005 is challenging the ban on purchasing or owning a gun. In another, a Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty to making a false statement on her tax returns sued over the ban.

The court hasn't yet decided whether to take the cases.

The justices struck down handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago in2008 and 2010. The landmark, 5-4decision in District of Columbia v. Hellerspecifically nodded to the right to own a gun for lawful purposes,likeself-defense within the home.The late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote that opinion, nevertheless suggested that there were limits to the Second Amendment.

"Handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid," he wrote at the time.

Since then the court has let stand aChicago suburb'ssemiautomatic weapons banand a variety of prohibitions againstcarrying guns in public, from New Jersey to California. It hasrefused to second-guess age limits for carrying guns in Texas andrequirements for disabling or locking up guns when not in use in San Francisco.

Now the court has another opportunity to probe the limits Scaliaalluded toin theHellerdecision. Anew round of litigation over how far states may go to restrictthe right to carry guns outside a homehaspercolatedup through the courts.

The California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Wednesdayupheld a Hawaii gun regulation that limits the ability of people to openlycarry guns in public, a suit that appears destined to eventually make its way to the Supreme Court.

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The Supreme Court already has a similar dispute on its docket from New York State. In the first major Second Amendment case to come before the court since Barrett joined, two residents sought a license to carry guns outside their home but were denied because they didn't meet the state's requirement of having a "special need for self protection" above and beyond what's required by the general public.

They sued, arguing the state requirement is so onerous that it excludesvirtually everyone from carrying a gun. The New York-based federal appeals court disagreed, pointing to an earlier decision in 2012 in which the judges acknowledged a deep lack of clarity about what Scalia's 2008 decision in Hellermeant for guns outside a home.

"What we know from these decisions is that Second Amendment guarantees are at their zenith within the home," the court wrote at the time. "What we do not know is the scope of that right beyond the home and the standards for determining when and how the right can be regulated by a government."

It's that uncertainty that makes the New York regulation ripe for consideration, said Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. The court has managed to avoidthe issue for years,he noted, "but now we have a different court."

The justices are expected to discuss for the first timewhether to take the New York suitwhen they meet privately on Friday. It's not clear when the court might make a decision on whether to take the appeal.

"The issue has been floating around for nearly a decade and the court should answer the question, and the answer is either 'yes' or 'no,'"Blackmansaid. "All the pieces are there."

But the court has managed to step around major controversies in recent weeks, including on abortion, the 2020 election and immigrationpoliciesfrom the Trump administration. It could easily do so again with the pending gun cases.

The nation remains deeply divided over guns. Two-thirds of Americans back tougher gun laws, a recent USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found, but Republican support has fallen significantly as the issue takes on a stronger partisan cast than it did a few years ago.

Poll: Americans back tougher gun laws, but GOP support plummets, poll finds

But the court also has time: Anycaseitdecides totakenow would not likely be argued until the fall. And that would almost certainly pusha decision back until next year. By then, the scorching debate over how to respond to the recent shootings inGeorgia and Colorado may be over.

"Everyone speculates on what may influence the court" on whether to take a case, said Stephen Halbrook,a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and an attorneywho has represented the National Rifle Association. "We dont really know whether a recent mass murder would be a factor regarding the courts willingness to take on a Second Amendment case."

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Supreme Court poised to jump into Second Amendment disputes, as nation mourns mass shootings - USA TODAY