Letter: Time to revisit the Second Amendment

Justice Antonin Scalia was certainly a wise man who will go down in history as one of the great and most quoted Supreme Court justices. The Second Amendment was passed in 1791. This was a time when Indians were invading settlers’ homes, killing adults and capturing children. The Battle of Little Bighorn occurred in 1876.

Today the level of gun violence in this country far exceeds what James Madison could have conceived back then. Canada issued only five concealed-gun permits for the whole country last year, consequently its death rate from gun violence is more than a hundred times less than it is in the U.S.

The concept that an armed person at the recent San Bernardino mass killing could had prevented two individuals from blasting away at 200 rounds per minute is ludicrous. As a former member of the NRA and presently a concealed-weapons permit holder, I see no reason for carrying a weapon about wherever I go.

Justice Scalia was a so-called Federalist when it came to interpreting the Constitution. But do we really need easy access to guns with the premise of protecting our households today?

This story was originally published February 26, 2016 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Letter: Time to revisit the Second Amendment."