To the Editor:

In response to Letters to the Editor opposing gun control of any kind, I have a couple of points that I would like to discuss. First, gun rights advocates repeatedly quote the Second Amendment of our Constitution in support of their position that citizens have the right to own firearms, but few really seem to appreciate the intent of that passage. They consistently ignore the initial clause of the amendment that states, "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." The Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles declares that a meaning of "to bear arms" is a figurative usage meaning to serve as a soldier, do military service, fight. This study casts doubt on the modern definition of bear arms to mean carry firearms. In Amyette vs the State, the court stated in 1840 that bear arms has a military sense and no other. Militia, according to Webster's Dictionary is "a part of the organized armed forces of a country, liable to call only in emergency." The courts of the country continue to interpret and opine the Second Amendment and gun ownership yet today, but current opinions are just that, opinions, and not laws cast in stone.

Second, in the interest of a reasoned discussion concerning the ownership of rapid-fire, military type weapons, I would like to state that I am not opposed to hunting; my husband and son both hunt. I don't have serious issues with gun ownership for the purpose of hunting. The discussion I would like to encourage is what place, if any, the possession or ownership of military type rapid-fire weapons have in our general society.

In response to previous letters where defendants of rapid-fire weapon ownership have argued that a person intent on killing could kill numbers of people with a variety of weapons (stones, knives, etc.), I would submit that this is not a logical argument. There are few weapons that have the devastating firepower of military type weapons designed with only one purpose, the killing of human beings. These are the weapons that have tragically figured in far too many mass murders in recent times, school killings, postal, workplace, and restaurant murders, and the recent tragic murders of five innocent little girls in Pennsylvania. My argument is against ownership of guns that are specifically designed to kill people.

Historically, there is statistical evidence that countries that regulate the ownership of specific gun types have a significantly lower rate of murder. I may be thought of as unreasonable, or illogical, but in my mind, an argument that ignores the potential damage such weapons can do, without them having any concurrent positive social value, is an argument that is patently weak and cruelly callous toward the well-being of our citizens.

Beverly Schmidt

St. Ignace