Fox news is already framing talks about guns to be about the second amendment. Like right wing Republicans now and before them they are using only the language they want people to think about and connect with an issue that is not about the second amendment at all.
The easy and legal availability of weapons of mass destruction such as those used in Newtown, Connecticut to gun down 27 people, 20 of them 6 year old children, are not what the second amendment is about – certainly not the guns they meant at the amendment’s writing in an attempt to be able to quickly form militias to fight threats to the nation.
And despite NRA arguments to the contrary, these semi-automatic weapons are not necessary for hunting or for self-protection. Rifles and handguns that fire one bullet at a time seem perfectly sufficient to hunt and to defend oneself. Thus far in our nation the main purpose of semi-automatic weapons seems to be to mow down our own citizens, often children.
As President Obama said in Newtown, we need to change. Americans need to come to terms with this overblown desire for more and more firepower in the hands of individuals who have motivations that we will never be able to fathom.
It is time to realize that this is not a second amendment argument, but rather a discussion of what necessitates self-protection and what qualifies as a hunting gun. Any other defense of automatic or semi-automatic weapons in the hands of anyone who can afford to buy them or anyone who can take their parents’ weapons or anyone who can lie online or anyone who can steal them, is, as we should all know by now, a defense of the right to commit murder. No matter how the NRA and Fox news word it, weapons that fire hundreds of rounds of rapid fire in the hands of just about anybody are meant for one thing only – killing people.
