I had a very difficult time beginning this letter because of the large amounts of fundamentally flawed logic in Ben Godar’s article “200-year-old logic no basis for modern gun laws.”

The 2nd Amendment was not designed for hunting or the “protection of the rich,” it was written as a check against tyranny.

The Constitution preserves “the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … [where] the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. (James Madison, of Virginia).”

If you feel that logic is outdated, read your history and look at Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Mao Zedong. Before each of them began his killing frenzy, each one of those leaders banned guns (John Lott, “More Guns, Less Crime”). I wonder how history would have changed if Germans had refused to hand over their guns.

Israelis routinely borrow Uzis from a communal armory when traveling. Israel has the lowest suicide and homicide rate of all developed countries (American Guardian, October 1997). Neighborhoods are patrolled by civil guards with government-issued guns. When a kidnapping occurs, hundreds of volunteers assemble with issued firearms and search for the missing person.

Don’t rely upon the government to protect you because they can’t and won’t. Courts have consistently stated that the police have no obligation to protect individuals. When the average 911 response time is around 15 minutes you must take it upon yourself to defend your loved ones and yourself. After all, it’s ridiculous to expect the 150,000 on-duty police to help over 250 million Americans.

I urge every individual to contact his congressman and demand that he stop taking away our rights. If our right to keep and bear arms is lost, all of our rights, including our right to free speech, are threatened. Judging from the laziness of the typical American, our country will soon be renamed “The Peoples Republic of America.”

God bless and be safe.

Michael Swanson

Senior

Computer engineering