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letter from Britain by James Mason JBerridge9 wrote: Hi James I'm a Brit who is very interested in the US constitution. Following the terrible incident in Colorado, I was reading in our papers about the 2nd Amendment. I should say that I'm completely opposed to public ownership of guns but then, I do come from a different historical and cultural background. I found your web site (http://www.redshift.com/~jamesm2/ 2nda2.htm) story very moving and very sad. I do not understand why Americans seem to be so wedded to such deadly weapons. We have our own fair share of disturbed people in Britain. Fortunately, for the most part, they are not able to get hold of and learn how to use guns. It would be very hard for someone to knife 14 people to death. I understand that the 2nd amendment, which is widely used to justify there being 200,000,000 guns in circulation in the US, is widely misinterpreted. Perhaps you could give me your view on this. Does the second amendment give Americans the constitutional right to bear arms or, does it merely give each state the right to set up a militia which carries arms? I would be very interested to hear your opinion. Good luck in your hand gun control "fight". A few still small voices may eventually become an irrepressible chorus. Lets hope so. Jude Good day Jude and thank you very much for this kind letter. The best answer for the question is that the 2nd amendment to our Contitution means "both." Officialy it means that it is only pertenent to a state Militia. But general consensus is that it was created for the protection of firearms ownership among the individual. Our high courts disagree with the later, maintaining it protects only the state's right to form well regulated militia organizations - the sentence structer would imply. I think the founders of our nation considered the 2nd amendment right after they decided not to address the slavery issue. don't consider our constitution too hard, you'll get a pounding headache. James
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