Salon: America Is Not Like Switzerland When It Comes to Guns. But It Should Be!

By Robert Farago

The Supreme Court’s Heller decision should have ended the debate over the Second Amendment’s militia clause (“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”). Heller clearly and unequivocally ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. A decision that failed to surprise anyone who noticed that all the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are individual rights. And anyone with glancing familiarity with the Federalist Papers. My favorite quote . . .

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” — Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

The people “at large.” As in not organized into a militia. And dontcha just love that an armed American was the dashing Mr. Hamilton’s best hope? Not an educated electorate. An armed populace. So, anyway . . .

While liberals would like us to believe that abortions and same sex marriage are Constitutional rights and “settled law” they singularly refuse to accept the individual gun rights set forth in Heller. And McDonald. Case in point, Heather Digby Parton’s diatribe for salon.com, The right’s …read more