I am appalled at the lack of understanding many seem to have about our own history. To understand the Second Amendment, you must understand that the framers of our constitution were paranoid about the government having too much power over the people.

The act of voting was supposed to replace the use of force in making sure the government did not abuse the people. However, the framers realized that the government could ignore a vote if that vote was not backed by the potential of brute force.

Therefore, they allowed that all voting citizens would maintain the ability to back their vote with the threat of force. This was to insure the government would not be able to turn its military power against the people.

With this in mind, reducing the availability of weaponry the public may own or control to the equivalent of pitchforks (when compared to the government’s arsenal) is unconstitutional.

If you wish to argue that the public does not need to fear the government may turn on the people militarily, I ask that you remember the Civil War when the federal government conquered the southern states for purely economic reasons, not to free the slaves.

I do not have room to fully back the last assertion, but let me leave you with some facts to research in the original documents.

The Emancipation Proclamation was designed specifically to preclude the British from entering the conflict on the side of the South and freed zero slaves. Any state who did not stand against the Union would not lose its right to hold slaves, and all escaped slaves from said states would be returned if captured in the Union.

Finally, in Lincoln’s own personal letters he states that the only reason for the war is the preservation of the Union, and that if allowing slaves in the South would accomplish that, he would do it without hesitation.

Ask your history professor and consider why minorities still struggle for equal rights today. Slaves were not freed due to some widely held high ideal but simply because technology made slaves obsolete.

The myth is simply perpetuated to provide a moral underpinning for what the southern states more accurately refer to as the war of northern aggression.

Stevan Massa

senior in Engineering