"Regardless of who pulled the trigger, I blame the gun"

A couple days ago, I wrote about Woody Bass, and how much he hates guns. This opinion piece, by Jeremy M. Burnside, practically makes Woody look like a John Wayne character.

The second sentence describes his thoughts about the shooting death of his friend.

Regardless of who pulled the trigger, I blame the gun.

Well, I bet the shooter hopes the police, the DA, and the jury hold to the same . . . interesting view as to who (or what, I suppose) is guilty of a killing. It should be pointed out that Jeremy is a trial attorney--presumably not a prosecutor. Hey--here's a question: if a drunk driver kills someone, since we obviously can't blame him, do we blame the bottle the booze came in, or is it the car's fault?

In my 2003 submission, I called for abolition of guns. I cited school and workplace shootings initiated by disturbed people, but concluded by bullets. I continue to call for the abolition of guns for the same reason that left my friend and her parents dead in their Dunbar apartment: Americans are in love with guns and are not brave enough to part with them.

At least Jeremy has the honesty to come out and say that he wants to disarm the entire country. He doesn't try to claim that he "supports gun owners," because he won't try to ban hunting guns. Nope--he wants all guns banned.

The constitutionality of possible gun abolition would be an issue with many Americans who are law-abiding gun owners.

Gee--you think?

But it is the courts that interpret the Constitution, not the popular vote.

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that he seems to advocate using the power of the courts to subvert the will of the people, what is there to "interpret" about "shall not be infringed"? Any "interpretation" of the Second Amendment that ends up with something along the lines of "shall be infringed just as much as the government wants" would seem to require using something other than the English definitions of the words in the Bill of Rights.

In United States v. Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted this provision to mean that citizens do not have an individual right to bear arms unless they possess “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.”

An attorney wrote this? The Supreme Court verdict in United States v. Miller did no such thing. The rejection of the Second Amendment defense was based on the (inaccurate) belief on the Court's part that short barrelled shotguns had no military utility. If the firearm in question had been a machine gun, or even if a defense attorney had been present to argue the case, the state of gun rights in this country would most likely be vastly different today.

Jeremy then points out the ironic fact (I assume it's a fact, anyway) that he is a distant ancestor of General Ambrose Burnside, the NRA's first president. He claims that the General would not have approved of the NRA's role in advocating gun rights. He offers nothing to back up that claim.

The last paragraph is . . . something to behold (to be fair, it makes a little more sense if it is made clear that his murdered friend was a competitive rower).

It’s about time the coxswains of our government do something about the guns that are shooting holes in the boat they command, which we call America. As they continue to promote more guns for more crime, our vessel of prosperity and peace continues to sink. How much longer can stubbornness for a misguided view of the Second Amendment keep us afloat? Sadly, not long enough for our society to ever row like Lori did.

Jeremy, could you mercifully put a torpedo in your tortured nautical metaphor, before I get seasick?