Gun Sense or Non-sense?

Hello and welcome. I am Dr George Lundberg and this is At Large at Medscape.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution, as written largely by James Madison and passed by the US Congress, reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

But as later ratified by the states and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, it reads: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

This amendment is based in large part on the 1689 English Bill of Rights supporting the rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the duty to act together in defense of (or from) the state.

As an experienced editor, if an author had sent me that original Second Amendment statement, I would have sent it back for revision. It may possibly have made sense in 1791, but in 2017 it is very confusing. What does a militia have to do with anything in 2017? How, if at all, does this apply to individual rights in the absence of a militia? Who knows what the writers actually meant?

But does it even matter in 2017, since the "arms" of 1791 are so different from the "arms" of the 21st century? The US Supreme Court has been called upon many times to interpret the meaning of the Second Amendment, and it has ruled in very different ways during different eras. The older decisions of the Supremes were on the side of only a militia having the right to own arms; more recently, the Supremes have moved toward supporting individual rights to arms. But what are the "arms" of 1791 in 2017 anyway?

Please help me understand why any American not in the military, organized law enforcement, or who is not a museum collector should have a right to own live functional bazookas, hand grenades, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, land mines, nuclear bombs, napalm, automatic rapid-fire machine guns (1200 rounds per minute [RPM]), submachine guns and machine pistols (1000 RPM), automatic assault rifles (900 RPMs), or semiautomatic (fires one round per trigger pull; 150 RPMs in theory but must reload) with 30-round ammunition carriers, Colt AR 15s, Kalashnikov AK-47s, and so on.

We have all recently learned how easy it is for a motivated person to convert a semi-automatic rifle to automatic mode for rapid fire. The aforementioned weaponry plus most handgunnery are all intended only to kill human beings—surely, rapidly, and potentially in large numbers. A 2016 study^[1] found that 30% of American households—that includes a lot of physicians and other healthcare professionals—own guns of some type.

Our country seems destined by the makeup of the current Supreme Court to include a heavily armed populace for the foreseeable future. Since every weapon in my list has as its main purpose the killing of human beings, it all comes down to efficiency of function.

You tell me, all you owners of any of the weapons listed: How many people do you wish to kill in a brief time? Are you a single-kill-type guy or gal, or maybe two to four kills? Or 10 at one shooting? Dozens? Hundreds? Those parameters could help you, your politicians, and the National Rifle Association to decide how much is enough. Is any number of "arms" too much?

Please tell me.

That’s my opinion. I am Dr George Lundberg, at large for Medscape.