By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – San Diego Jewish World likes to present a broad spectrum of opinion, and for that reason we published a column today by Michael Hayutin in which he takes issue with protesters, including those students who have been organizing marches around the country to demand serious efforts be made to control guns and stop the mass shootings.
You can read Hayutin’s column by clicking here. While I welcome his point of view, I disagree with it. I’m more in tune with a column written recently by Eric George Tauber, which you can read by clicking here.
For my part, I would like to commend the students who are demanding action from our national and state legislators on this very serious issue of gun control. Mass murders—whether they be in schools, movie theaters, concert venues, fast food restaurants, or anywhere else—must not become the new normal in our national life. We must not become inured to this madness.
I know that there are people who treasure the Second Amendment and the right it bestows on the citizenry to own and use guns, even automatic weapons that are more appropriate for military use than for the gun enthusiasts’ hobby.
But I disagree with the gun enthusiasts, and for that matter, I disagree with the Second Amendment to our Constitution, which through court interpretation has extended to gun owners and their lobby protections that I’m certain our Founding Fathers never envisioned and certainly would not have sanctioned.
I’d like to see the Second Amendment itself amended to guarantee the right of the individual states to operate well-regulated militias, and to authorize the Congress to determine what kind of weapons should be reserved for the use of the military, official militias, and law enforcement, and which other weapons should be available to individual citizens.
I believe the students who have been organizing and participating in these mass protests are awakening the good conscience of America. Rather than being ungrateful to their country, as Hayutin seems to suggest, I believe they are acting within the noblest traditions of our country, which guarantee the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
I don’t think it was happenstance that these First Amendment freedoms were placed in the Bill of Rights before the Second Amendment.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via Donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Thank you.