"It's always too soon to talk about gun control"

[robkelk]

CBC Opinion/Editorial: It is too late for gun control in America

The youth protests are quite understandable: these are kids who grew up being told they have an absolute right to protection from words that offend them, let alone mass murderers carrying weapons designed to kill soldiers in war.

In fact, though, the bedrock law of their country guarantees both things: the right to offensive speech and the right to own and carry battlefield weapons in public.

These youth have also been misled, especially since the 9/11 attacks, into believing that the most sacred duty of their president is to protect American lives, when in fact their president has no intention of protecting theirs. He will do nothing to prevent the next murderer from picking up an AR-15 and setting out for some school to see if he can break the previous shooter's record.

This is not opinion. It is the only possible conclusion.

And in Caetano v. Massachusetts, two years ago, the [US Supreme] court further declared that the Second Amendment applies "to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding (of the nation)."

In other words, Americans can bear whatever modern ordnance they can carry, from sniper rifles to hand-cannon pistols to the weapon of choice for mass murderers, the AR-15.

Look to the origins of the Second Amendment. As the federal court of appeals in D.C. has ruled, Americans have the right to bear arms in self-defence, which it defined as "resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad)."

Think about that one. Americans have the right to amass an arsenal to defend themselves against their own government, if it becomes tyrannical.

And anyone who doubts that millions would regard any effort to take their guns away as the depredations of a tyrannical government need only consult the essays regularly carried on the NRA website.

It would be civil war.