The undefined right to freedom of speech has been misunderstood, misapplied, and abused. So also has the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms.” America, with its 122 guns for every 100 souls is a paradise for firearms manufacturers and the horror and laughing-stock of the civilized world. 

The Second Amendment protects a right to keep and bear arms in support of “a well regulated Militia.” Nothing is said about stand your ground, open and closed carry, automatic weapons, butt stocks, and all the other excesses of American gun culture, but the Second Amendment has been stretched thin to cover all these and much more, and more energy and cash have been expended in defense of an inflated and elaborated understanding of “gun rights” than in defense of any other rights guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights.  

The consequence of this has been a neglect of regulation of firearms that would be unthinkable in any sophisticated society. Did the founding fathers even imagine that America would become so degenerate that its courts and legislatures would turn a provision meant to create a militia into a license for childishness and criminality?