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May 17, 2023 By Michael Weymouth

As gun violence continues unabated in our country, it has become clear that the Republican Party has no intention of doing anything about it, short of offering thoughts and prayers to the victims families. That and a plethora of useless bromides such as the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The roots of the modern gun debate go back to the 1963, Kennedy assassination, when Democratic senator Thomas Dodd from Connecticut introduced legislation restricting the sale of mail order rifles. Shortly thereafter President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968, and in 1994 President Bill Clinton signed the Assault Weapons Ban, which lasted ten years. It was allowed to expire under President George W. Bush. As a result, 20 million assault weapons are now in the hands of American gun owners.

It is clear that the Democratic Party has done its best to limit the sales of assault weapons, as well as to legislate common sense gun laws, while the Republican Party has done nothing but oppose them.

It hasnt always been this way.

In fact, two of the icons of the Republican Party actually held opinions about gun control that were diametrically opposed to positions held by todays Republican Party.

Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon SCOTUS appointee said of the Second amendment, The gun lobbys interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies-the militia-would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.

One can hardly imagine that opinion coming from todays Supreme Court, which has adhered to a much narrower interpretation of the Second Amendment. Compare the Courts recent ruling that allowed New York citizens to openly carry guns, to comments made by President Ronald Reagan in 1967: There is absolutely no reason why out on the street today a civilian should be carrying a loaded weapon.

Burgers and Reagans comments beg the question: what happened to the Republican Party?

The answer is the NRA and its 5 million members, most of whom vote solid Republican, and, as Burger pointed out, the gun industrys lobby, which contributes millions of dollars to Republican politicians each year. The result is a constant Republican drumbeat that Democrats want to take away all guns. This is total hogwash.

In the meantime, American children fear going to school and their parents fear they will never see them again as their kids board the school bus in the morning.

Todays Republican Party has a lot to answer for and hopefully they will wake up to the damage they have done by failing to deal with this important issue. A good start will be for every American voter to condition his or her vote on how committed a candidate is to revisiting the Second Amendment and how it might be amended to better serve and protect the American people.

There should be no greater motivation than the fact that there have already been 202 mass shootings in 2023, more than one a day.

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Opinion: The Second Amendment Fraud - Hingham Anchor

One of the biggest issues currently facing America is gun violence. I will be the first to admit, sometimes I regret the fact that our Founding Fathers gave us the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. Clearly, they did not know that weapon technology would evolve over time. Back in 1971, muskets were the primary if not the only guns being used. Enough is enough. Approximately five months ago, I wrote this petition in hopes to put a stop to gun violence in America. It proposes a 29th Amendment to the U.S Constitution to implement stricter gun control, and it may be the only hope to save our nation. Here is the link: https://www.change.org/Amendment_XXVIII.

Dante MedoriJenkintown, Penn.

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The Republicans and the Supreme Court have completely disregarded the first half of the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a state" This is why I believe that the Second Amendment needs to be modernized.

In fact, I believe the entire U.S. Constitution needs to be modernized. The original document was written in the late 1700s and has been modified throughout the years, mainly in the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s. It is 2023 and there are many topics that are not mentioned in the Constitution because they did not exist in the 1700s or early 1900s. Computers, the internet, present-day guns, just to name a few. The problem is that the government won't do anything about this until lobbying is called what it truly is, bribery, and that corporate money is removed from politics completely. Citizens United must be overturned, and another Constitutional Convention be held to modernize the Constitution.

Robert JeziorowskiAdrian

My grandmothers home in Detroit was once my familys epicenter. That changed in 2014, when her home was ravaged by a once in a lifetime flood fueled by climate change, a phenomenon that continues to devastate Detroit communities.

While I commend U.S. Sen. Gary Peters for his work mitigating the impacts of flooding in Michigan, we need his leadership to help prevent climate catastrophe in the first place. The U.S. Congress is currently trying to gut crucial environmental protections and make it easier to approve more dirty fossil fuel and mining projects. House Republicans recently passed a dangerous energy package, H.R. 1, and the U.S. Senate is now holding hearings to craft their own harmful legislation, further endangering frontline constituents across the country.

If Sen. Peters is truly committed to ensuring a safe environment for all Michiganders, he must speak out now and oppose any bill that sacrifices environmental justice for pipelines and polluter profits.

Alisha Soofi Ann Arbor

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I am glad to see that the U.S. Preventive Services Screening Task Force has properly interpreted the existing data and has recommended screening mammography for all women of average risk starting by 40.

Scientific evidence shows that screening women in their forties reduces that group's mortality by 12% to 29% depending on the study. However, the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the Society of Breast Imaging (SBI) urge the Task Force to go further and recommend annual screening for women over the age of 40. Increasing evidence demonstrates that the mortality from breast cancer continues to rise in young minority women (African American and Ashkenazi Jewish).

The ACR and SBI also recommend that all women 25 years and older undergo a risk assessment evaluation to determine if they are at higher risk. If yes, they should discuss supplemental screening such as MRI, Contrast Enhanced Mammography and ultrasound with their clinician.

Murray RebnerAnn Arbor

Why I wonder why is AOL mail is so biased in favor of former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party? AOL supposedly asks readers to vote for or against Trump and or Republican policies. Trump and Republican polices always win these fixed elections with a 99% majority. Any one knows a 99% vote majority is impossible in any fair election.

Ronald KangasHarper Woods

Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. George Santos was arrested as his house cards collapsed with a 13-count felony incitement. His lies caught up with him. Does Long Island really want to be represented by this jerk? After six months of steady lying, U.S. Speaker Kevin McCarthy should cut his losses. Santos is a disgrace and unfit to serve in the House of Representatives.

Gerald MaxeyFarmington Hills

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Letters to the Editor: I regret the Second Amendment - Detroit Free Press

by Merrill Ring | Special to the Courier

Douglas Lyons and I disagree [SCOTUS misses the point of the Second Amendment, May 5, and The Second Amendment is clear, obvious, and directly stated, May 12] about what the Second Amendment means because we disagree about the function of its first clause: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, I call those words a preamble because they are crucial to understanding the Second while Lyons thinks they are minor prefatory verbiage.

The particular labels are irrelevant. Is the clause important or not? Let me use something Lyons himself says to start showing its function. He correctly points out the clause is grammatically incomplete and so cannot be asserted on its own. A militia being necessary to must have a second clause to make a complete assertion. In logical form the whole is like, Being tired, he went to bed, Being tired is not an assertion on its own. However, we all know the whole means Because he was tired, he went to bed. Being tired is the explanation of what he did.

So too, the first clause of the Second Amendment means Because a Militia is necessary to the security of a free state, That is, the first clause explains why a right to arms is given in the second clause. An explanation is not a trivial preface, as Lyons calls the first clause. Rather, it gives the justification for a Constitutional grant to the American people of a right to arms.

Lyons further tries to trivialize the first clause by saying it merely gives examples; for him the reference to a militia is made simply as an example of what guns can be used for. But did Madison just accidentally single out militias as an example of the many uses of guns? Come on. The clause mentions militias because that is what the entire amendment is about. Madison in framing the Second did not just happen to refer to a military entity an example. The amendment sets out the connection between militia service and a right to privately own a gun.

Hurrying to dispense with the first clause and its reference to a militia, Lyons pays no attention to what it says about militias: being necessary to the security of a free State. Whoa! Is that true? We today do not have a militia, yet we are a free state. Despite the Second Amendments claim, a militia is not necessary to our national security.

Why is that false thesis in our Constitution?

The problem is solved by noticing that the Constitution rejects the idea of a permanent army, or a standing army (Article 1, Section 8). Given that we originally did not have a government organization to ensure our security, what then would be necessary for the military defense of the country? Militias! (Like those who harassed the British at Lexington and Concord.) The Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights to make sure private citizens have the right to what they need, namely privately owned guns, to enable them to join in the defense of their country.

There is, however, a massively important consequence of having the Constitution attach a citizens right to keep a weapon to their service in a militia. We now have a permanent army to meet our military needs. With that, the necessity of having militias to provide military security has vanished. Without militias, the Second Amendments right to keep a weapon has become null and void. Thus, the Second Amendment has lost its reason for existence (just as has its companion, the Third Amendment). Yet, though irrelevant to the contemporary American way of life, it remains there in our Constitution (just as the human appendix remains in our bodies), a reminder of how the world used to be, a matter of historical interest only.

I would remind Lyons and friends that a right to own a gun can in all likelihood be developed by relying on the Ninth Amendment. They need to get to work on that: forget the Second Amendment.

Merrill Ring, a Claremont community activist for more than 40 years, is a retiredprofessor of philosophy and dedicated Courier letter writer.

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Second Amendment jousting continues - Claremont Courier

A constitutional challenge to Illinois gun and magazine ban is under advisement at the Illinois Supreme Court.

Illinois bans the sale and possession of more than 170 semi-automatic firearms and certain magazines. If the law is sustained, those with such firearms owned before the law was enacted must register the weapons under criminal penalty by Jan. 1. The law is being challenged in federal and state courts.

Tuesday at the Illinois Supreme Court in Springfield, justices heard oral arguments in the case Caulkins v. Pritzker. The case comes out of Macon County where state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, and others allege, among other things, the law violates equal protections because it does not apply to active and retired police officers and others in law enforcement and security fields.

Justice Elizabeth Rochford asked Caulkins attorney Jerry Stocks about the training exemption law enforcement officers have.

And that they continue to maintain that training while they maintain their exempt status as opposed to just everyone else, Rochford said. Is that an arbitrary

It is arbitrary, Stocks said.

Stocks said retired military who have training arent exempt. Other justices asked whether this is a Second Amendment challenge or an equal protections challenge.

You cannot even begin to address the grounds that are in this complaint without addressing and finding what the Second Amendment says in this case, Stocks said during the hearing.

The court took the issue under consideration and could rule in the months ahead. The states ban also faces challenges in federal court with several cases consolidated at the appeals court level and a motion for emergency injunction pending in front of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Defending the state, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said he was confident the ban is constitutional after the Illinois Supreme Court hearing, especially with continued news of recent mass shootings. Raoul was asked about similar training the public could take.

Well, you play a different role, right, Raoul said. Its not just a question of training, youre not in a law enforcement role, I dont think.

Raoul criticized the plaintiffs for not arguing the Second Amendment in their pleadings but raised it in the court.

Stocks reiterated his claim the law violates equal protections of civil liberties.

This was about the fundamental individual right under the Second Amendment that could not be diluted by Illinois version of the Second Amendment, Stocks said after the hearing.

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Illinois justices hear 2nd Amendment, equal protections arguments ... - AdVantageNEWS.com

NBA

By Ryan Glasspiegel

May 15, 2023 | 2:50pm

Fox News host Will Cain does not believe Ja Morant should be suspended for his latest instance of appearing to flash a gun on IG Live.

Cain, who is hosting Fox News this week in the 8:00 pm slot previously hosted by Tucker Carlson, wondered aloud why the NBA would be infringing upon the Grizzlies stars second amendment rights.

Explain to me something. Does Ja Morant not have 2A rights? Cain asked.

Can he not do what he wants outside of his work environment if its still legal? It may be stupid, but I dont know what hes done to be suspended.

Morant is suspended indefinitely from team activities, and ESPNs Adrian Wojnarowski has reported on the possibility of Morant facing a lengthy suspension to start the 2023-24 NBA season.

Morant was previously suspended eight games for brandishing a firearm while on IG Live from a Denver-area strip club, immediately following several months in which there were a number of incidents where Morant and his circle were accused of threatening violence.

This isnt to endorse his lack of responsibility for handling his gun, Cain continued on Twitter. Or his image. But cmon, suspended?

Employment has become too big of a mechanism for behavior control. When Kaepernick did what he did the salient point was he did it ON THE JOB, at the workplace. Now employers control too much dumb but legal parts of life unrelated to work. Dumb statements? Wrong think?

And dont think employment is devoid of politics. Im not saying there is a bright line or an easily identifiable principle here. Its tough. As so many times, its a judgment call. But I dont like the instinct of your job controlling your legal but maybe dumb (in someones opinion) life.

Clay Travis, the founder of OutKick, which was acquired by Fox, responded to Cain.

Theres a really good, smart debate to have on employer restrictions of legal behavior outside of work but I think the challenge here for Ja is he has several alleged gun incidents in his recent past: alleged crew pulling gun on Pacers team buses, alleged gun to threaten a teenager in pick up game at his house, strip club insta gun video, Travis tweeted.

Not crazy to me for Grizz and NBA to be concerned about his behavior with guns. Then to follow it up with this within a couple of months of a big suspension where he claims he understands the team and league find his behavior unacceptable, its just really dumb and immature. Even his buddy in this video tried to protect him because he knew how dumb this was.

Cain was not swayed that Morant deserves a suspension.

Great response. And I think Ja should be judged and is and has behaved stupidly. Still not sure about suspension, he responded to Travis. But I also think employer image in controlling legal behavior outside of work has gone way too far.

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Will Cain's second amendment defense for Ja Morant: 'Can he not do what he wants?' - New York Post