Letter: The right to bear arms

In the past 221 years many legal cases have been wrangled and argued over the right to keep and bear arms.

If any wisdom existed within the U.S. Supreme Court, a definition would be established defining “arms” as opposed to weaponry and as intended for personal protection. That definition would certainly exclude the type of military weapons commonly available two-plus centuries after the Second Amendment was ratified. There is no way that amendment was intended to arm a teenager whose intent is to murder as many innocent people as possible in minutes or seconds with a killing device no one dreamed of in 1791.

Change and security cannot be achieved overnight. Without reversing the Second Amendment, but rather by applying a reasonable and logical definition of “arms” consistent with the real intent of the law, we would overtime move away from the sickening tragedies which darken our nation.

Tom Stall

McHenry