The November 5th issue of Runner’s World carries a column by athlete Nick Symmonds calling for a handgun ban for everyone except police and military personnel.
The column also calls for a ban on “assault rifles,” while kindly proposing that regular citizens should be allowed to keep a shotgun with which to hunt birds and a “[rifle]…for big game animals.”
In a manner similar to Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, Symmonds starts his column by exclaiming, “I love my Second Amendment right.” Shortly thereafter he limits the Second Amendment to a protection of hunting weaponry, although hunting has never been central to the Second Amendment.
As Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion for McDonald v. Chicago (2010), “Individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the 2nd Amendment right.” Moreover, he said the preferred weapon for self-defense is a handgun.
An October 25th Gallup poll shows that 74 percent of Americans opposed the idea of banning handgun possession for all but “police and other authorized persons.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.