Newspaper Argues Founders Could Not Have Foreseen ‘Assault Weapons’

On August 10, the UK’s Independent used the Internet to publish a story arguing that America’s Founding Fathers could not have foreseen “assault weapons.”

In other words, while using a type of publication that did not exist when the First Amendment was written, the Independent is decrying a type of gun that did not exist when the Second Amendment was written.

According to the Independent:

When the Founding Fathers wrote their much admired framework for the governance of America in the late 18th century, it was a world of muskets and militias. If it was anything, the Second Amendment sprung from the revolutionary experience of the American War of Independence, and the ancient right to self-defense. They could not have foreseen the destructive power of modern weaponry, still less the deranged people who would put it to such indiscriminate use.

It is fair to say the First Amendment sprang from centuries of religious persecution, stifled speech, and a shackled press. But the Founders who supported adding the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights could in no way have foreseen the Internet, blog sites, online news outlets, laser printing, and a myriad of other developments that now allow words and ideas to be quickly disseminated to millions of people. Nor could they have foreseen the evil purposes that such expediency would serve–from gang members communicating to cause violence in Chicago to ISIS-inspired attackers communicating the violence they plan to perpetrate to the stories many outlets publish online that are based on little more than hearsay.

But the Independent did not mention the First Amendment. Rather, it continued by lamenting that America has yet to curtail its Second Amendment, particularly lamenting that “assault weapons” have not been banned. They suggest that “this has always puzzled foreigners, particularly Europeans, where, until the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Balkan Wars, even criminals found it difficult to acquire firearms in most states.”

Americans are puzzled by Europeans continuing to preach gun control as an answer, when countries like France–where gun control is extremely stringent–witnessed brutal and bloody attacks that took 12 lives on January 7, 2015, and another 130 lives on November 13. More recently, in Germany–where gun control is also stringent–nine people were gunned down after being lured to a Munich McDonald’s.

The message reaching America is that gun control does not work.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.