Here’s something to think about: The right to bear arms is an unnecessary Amendment that exists today primarily for personal pleasure and satisfaction.
What is more, it is an NRA myth that the preservation of all other rights and freedoms depends on the right to bear arms.
None of them does. Not one, not freedom of speech not freedom of the press, not the right to assemble, not the right to petition the government, not the right to vote, none of them.
People who believe gun rights protect all other rights are living in the 19th century, right there with the NRA’s top gun, Wayne LaPiere, who just last week proclaimed this myth once again to a gathering of right wing conservatives (CPAC), only this time he went a step further.
He not only repeated the myth of how gun rights protect all rights, he deified the right to bear arms: “There is no greater personal individual freedom than the right to keep and bear arms, the right to protect yourself, and the right to survive…It’s not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.”
That is not only a hyperbolic statement. It is false on several levels.
Unless you are a farmer or depend on hunting for food, gun ownership rights are for personal pleasure or satisfaction and nothing else. In point of fact, the right to bear arms is superfluous to all other American rights and freedoms.
We could repeal the “right to bear arms” section of the Second Amendment and nothing would change.
How do I know? The way we should know everything else about how foolish we act when it comes to guns. Other nations have strict gun laws and yet the people in those countries enjoy the same democratic freedoms we do.
Why, then, do our freedoms depend on gun ownership when no one else’s do? The answer is simple: They Don’t!
Gun rights have nothing to do with the preservation of our personal freedoms.
And that fact has profound implications for the current debate America’s teenagers are forcing the nation to have after the Parkland school shootings.
Intuitively or intellectually, they know gun ownership is a right, but not an essential one, not even a big one, a minor right in fact compared to their right to live without the fear of being shot at school, or anywhere else.
That is why they also know that the refusal to ban semi-automatic weapons and to enact other sensible gun control laws is to choose guns over their lives.
And they are exactly right!
Which is why I think it is time to shoot down (no pun intended) all the NRA propaganda about gun ownership being essential to our way of life.
Gun ownership doesn’t protect our way of life. It has become a major threat to it.
It should be hard, difficult, time consuming, frustratingly bureaucratic to be a gun owner. It should never be easy.
In the 21st century, for almost everyone except a very few, gun ownership is a hobby, a sport, a personal pleasure, but it is in no way critical to anything.
But our children’s safety is.
linnposts.com 
Absolutely!
AGREE
For a short time back in the ’70s, I was for a short time a member of the South Hampshire Rifle and Pistol Club, which had regular fixtures on the Royal Navy’s rifle range at Tipner, near Portsmouth. I say ‘for a short time’, because I found that buying fifty rounds or so of 0.38 special per fixture burnt such an economic hole in my pocket, that I decided that any ‘shooting’ I did would be done with a camera at landscapes – so much more rewarding, with fewer legal bugbears!
That’s what we need to happen here in the States, Nigel.
Soundly reasoned. Eloquently stated. Maybe if many NRA members who really mean they want only hunting rights would break away and form the National Hunters Assn, then use their dues money to effect laws that do everything else, maybe real change could be wrought.
Cheerz!
Gene
Excellent idea, Gene. Let’s hope some of them read this.
Amen to that, Jan. The killing of the voiceless at Sandy Hook couldn’t move republicans. There is hope that the voices of high school children might be able to.
That is the light shining in this darkness at the moment, Wilbur.
Love your essays, Jan. Your articles are “spot on”.
Thank you, Connie. It is always good to know people read and appreciate what I write. It keeps me going.
Jan,
Of all the innumerable things I have read and heard on this subject — in newspapers, magazines, on TV and radio — your post is easily the best!
You logically and systematically destroy every excuse, myth and lie that the NRA and their sycophants spew in defense of the ownership of any and every type of gun imaginable.
Calling them out for their “hobby, sport, and pleasure,” having not a thing to do with the 2nd Amendment, is brilliant……..
Sad to say, yours is a splendid voice in a nasty wind — little if anything will change in our violent nation……
Bill Blackwell
Anyone who knows the discerning eye you possess in distinguishing tripe from substance in arguments also knows this is a genuine endorsement of my blog not to be taken lightly. I can assure you I don’t. Thanks.
Jan,
This is an interesting essay and I agree with you. I say this as one who shoots skeet and sporting clays. All my shotguns are government registered and kept locked away when not in use. They were purchased for sport, not home protection or anything to do with the second amendment.
Ken, your comment makes me think that you are like many other gum owners who want that freedom, but don’t make the end all of everything else. My blog was an effort to put the right to bear arms in perspective in the hope some balance between ownership and regulations can be found. Thanks for reading my bog and offering a comment.
I’m sure the 120 million dead people that were denied firearms in the last century would dispute your rhetoric. All the Bill of Rights amendments are dependent on the 2nd amendment. If you trust the government or your fellow man to respect your rights without the ability to use force, you are in for a sad awakening. Germans would not use genocide as they were a civilized people right?
I have let most of the other comment stands without my input, but yours is too extreme to let pass. Take your first sentence. It is simply an absurd comment. 120 million people have not been denied firearms in the last century. If you are referring to Germany and Italy and the like, those countries chose leaders who turned out to be fascists. Many more people live in European democracies today that have strict firearm laws and they are just as free as you and I. That fact is also why your second sentence is false. Not one of the freedoms we enjoy that are in the Bill of Rights depends on the Second Amendment. In fact, one argument against ratifying the the Bill of Rights was that all of the ten amendments proposed at the time were already guaranteed in the Constitution itself. Finally, you trust the government everyday whether you believe it or not. Moreover, the idea that you would be able to defend yourself against a government that has nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is not even rational. But the larger point is that you missed my point entirely. My proposal included protecting private ownership of guns as a property right. Apparently you are unaware of the fact that before the 2008 Supreme Court decision that struct down the ban on guns in D.C. the Court had never agreed that the Second Amendment protected private ownership, yet Americans owned guns anyway. That in itself disproves everything you have said. One last thing. I don’t share your cynicism toward our government. Our government has weaknesses and problems, with the election of Donald Trump making that worse, but it is still made up of people we vote in. So if you don’t trust politicians to protect your right to own a gun, vote them out instead of buying more guns.
Jan,
I think JJR has a point…..It’s at the top of the dunce cap that you just fitted him with 🙂