New Hampshire Woman Claims the Second Amendment is Outdated
As I was reading the Rockingham News yesterday I came across this letter to the editor and I realized how clueless some people really are. I also realized that this could be a growing trend in New Hampshire. I hope I am wrong, but I fear the worst is yet to come.
The letter to the editor that I am about to quote shows a total lack of understanding of the constitution, in this case the Maine and New Hampshire constitutions, and a total disdain for men in general. Or it could be a disdain for the constitution and a lack of understanding of men. Either way it sums up this writer perfectly.
The letter to the editor that I am now going to quote is about the second amendment. The letter starts:
So continues the pointless gun debate, since one side is mired in the desire to protect their image, and the other staunchly protective of the victims, both human and animal, of gun violence.
Gun owners are just protecting their image while opponents protect the victims, humans and animal according to this writer. Apparently protecting your family is not worth anything to this woman and we will read her thoughts on that idea later. She then quote directly from the New Hampshire and Maine constitutions and what is written there about the right to keep and bear arms.
“New Hampshire Constitution – [Art.] 2-a. [The Bearing of Arms.] All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.”
Maine Constitution – Section 16. To keep and bear arms. Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned. (By a bunch of Redcoats at their door).
She then throws a disclaimer on the end of the Maine constitution’s section on the right to bear arms that this was intended for the Redcoats.
Both these excerpts were written when the country was under siege. There was nothing in the minds of the newly hatched patriots other than affording farmers and citizens the means of defending themselves with more than pitchforks and fence posts. Certainly these brave words in the face of oppression were not meant merely to increase the membership dues of the National Rifle Association.
Historically she is incorrect, the New Hampshire constitution was ratified in 1788 while the Maine constitution was not ratified until 1819. The bill of rights was written in 1789 and ratified in 1791. The Revolutionary war ended in 1783. America was no longer under siege by the Redcoats.
A well regulated militia being necessary to being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That sentence is cut and dry, case closed. As is the sentence in the New Hampshire and Maine constitutions.
Look at what the New Hampshire constitution says; All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.” That cannot be misinterpreted, unless it is done willfully. ALL people have the right to defend themselves, their family, even their property in New Hampshire.
Maine’s constitution is even more straight forward and less prone to anything other than willful misinterpretation as it says the right to keep and bear arms shall never even be questioned. Yet here she is, questioning.
She goes on to state that men only carry guns to make up for their small dicks. Well, not in those words but the point was made. And what does she think about people who want to protect their family from the increasing violence we see in the nation every year?
May we see a list of names of people who have actually shot domestic intruders or carjackers as opposed to gang drive-by shooters? The majority of NRA members are much more familiar with hanging around woods at dawn with a six pack handy, ready to shoot hot lead into defenseless, petrified deer and birds than they are with home defense.
She isn’t buying any of it. She is blaming guns for drive by shootings instead of the people who have chosen this lifestyle. She wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens to stop drive by shootings? This is nothing but misplaced guilt. Instead of blaming the shooters for their actions she is blaming the constitution for the people who have illegally obtained guns. Banning guns from law abiding citizens will not curb criminal activity, it will encourage it.
This is how she ends her article:
Those constituents who interpret the Constitution relative to its time period, not to the needs and declarations of those interested only in image and ego.
Basically she is saying the constitution is dated, it is old news and irrelevant. Times have changed and so have we. She wants people who are elected to understand that the constitution is no longer valid when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms. And she is back on the whole masculinity thing also.
This woman just wants to throw away the parts of the constitution that she doesn’t agree with and this is a scary thought. She is using flawed historical perspective to make this argument. Wouldn’t the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have been adopted while America was under siege as she put it? Wasn’t this a protection also to protect against the Redcoats? (Assuming as she did that the Redcoats were still attacking us long after the war was over.)
This writer has an issue with the second amendment so much so that she wants to say the right to keep and bear arms has no place in today’s life. She is even willing to say times have changed to make her argument. She is willing to say the constitution is outdated because she hates guns. She hates men also if you couldn’t tell.
If the constitution is so outdated on this issue wouldn’t it be outdated altogether? Why stop at the second amendment? Let’s just throw the whole thing out, it’s old anyway. It’s time for a new one.
America's Watchtower 
Can anyone explain to me how “the people” of the first amendment are not the same “the people” of the second amendment? This is always something I’ve wondered but no one I’ve met of the anti-gun crowd have given me an explanation that makes sense.
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She belongs to the “living and breathing constitution” group, so I’ll ask her how long does it need to pass for a document to be a “living and breathing” document?? Because I want to chalenge the title on her house……
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I’ll congratulate you on being in NH. With that line in the NH Constitution you will avoid the new interpretations of the US Constitution in the future. The push is on to stress the militia part-again.
Quite frankly legal citizens should have the right to legally possess firearms for protection and/or enjoyment. Hopefully we won’t forget the other parts of the Constitution about infringing on states rights.
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What about the war of 1812? No redcoats there?
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@ Edmund – Yes but the Brits spanked the militia and the US essentially used a real army and navy after that. Having seen your blog I find it hard to believe you’d be FOR keeping civilians from legally possessing firearms.
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I’m actually an advocate for peace. But I guess there is no room for that here in the good ol’ US of A
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Edmund not to get too far off topic…Advocating peace is a noble cause and the majority of Americans share the belief and hope that peace is the way to go. Peace isn’t passive though-it takes action and diligence.
The legal possession of firearms for sport,protection, etc. should never be confused with the criminal, violent and liberty stealing uses.
My pointed comment to you was meant to illustrate one simple truth. The free citizens of any society deserve the right to protect themselves from people and governments that would deny them their freedoms.
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” If the constitution is so outdated on this issue wouldn’t it be outdated altogether? Why stop at the second amendment?”
The constitution has been amended (including the bill of rights) 27 times. It is a living and breathing document which can change with the times. It is possible the 2nd Amendment in its current form has outlived its usefulness.
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Peace can only be obtained by the ability to enforce that peace and that requires the ability to be able to defend one’s self, one’s family and one’s community; and that requires weapons, equal to or better than, what the bad guys have. It also requires the backbone to utilize those weapons if necessary.
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“Peace can only be obtained by the ability to enforce that peace”
Um, no. There are ways to find peace without violence. Your absolute statement does not hold up. Peace can also be found when two sides are willing to sit down in the spirit of negotiation and cooperation to find common ground.
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@ Project Openletter…So can a guy who likes to do target shooting,a hunter and a woman who was raped and wants take charge of her own safety sit down with you or others and come to the agreement that the legal possession of firearms is o.k. ?
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Freedom is wonderful until your neighbors ‘freedom’ imposes itself upon you. Countries that have banned the possesion of firearms by its citizens have lower crime rates and lower death rates due to violent crime. As an example we can look at Japan, where a stabbing spree makes front page news all over the country, but a stabbing in America is commonplace, second though to shootings.
I am not for the government getting involved in peoples lives but if it can guarantee the decrease in violent crime and my chances of dying… who am i to argue?
Have you seen Charlten Hestons gun vault? Google it and be appalled.
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Go live in Japan. They don’t have the minority problems we have.
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That’s actually kind of untrue. Violent crime is a near constant in any given society regardless of the “tools” available. One could also point out those infamous locations in the States that have a large number of properly registered gun owners and those communities have low to no crime. Is it the guns ? Well actually no it’s the society at hand. The reaffirming factor of that on the other end of the spectrum is those places that ramp up gun crime charges and then experience club or knife crime increases.
As for Hestons vault any excesses on his part for gun collection is irrelevant since Mr. Heston didn’t go shooting innocent people and he secured his items properly.
BTW I don’t own any firearms
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I hope you write a rebuttal letter to the editor to make sure that most of the people who read the first letter will see your corrections.
You could live here in the People’s Republic of Pennsylvania where we actually had a judge say that the Constitution didn’t apply in his courtroom!
Long live freedom.
Rhonda
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@ Alfie
My husband is a hunter. He owns two guns and uses them for sport. He hunts deer and shoots trap. Happy?
I said that the 2nd amendment in its current form may have outlived its usefullness. I’m a proponent of gun reform. I’m not on either absolute “side” of this debate. I take issue with the crazy “pry them from my cold, dead hands” people as much as the “ban them all” people. We need gun reform and controls. That’s my opinion. I also believe that peace can’t be created by violence.
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Project O., Do you really think that people who are willing to fly a jet plane into a skyscraper are going to be “willing to sit down & negotiate”?
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im pretty sure shooting a hole into the side of an airplane wouldn’t solve any problems at 35000 feet.
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Holy shit Rhonda, that is absolutely unbelievable! Maybe I will write a rebuttal.
Project Openletter, in my opinion the right to defend yourself and your family will never have outlived it’s usefullness.
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Edmund, you made me laugh. Also, I agree with you.
Mr. Pink, we don’t live in the wild wild west. We have laws and policemen. Nothing is perfect, but taking matters into your own hands doesn’t help either. We need to focus as a society on other solutions.
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When seconds count, the police are only minutes away! Taking home defense into my own hands certainly would help me and my family.
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No we don’t, but society is getting worse. I live in a small town where nothing much ever happens, until the last couple of years. About two months ago a store was robbed that is about 1/4 from my house. The gun was thrown out onto the street very close to two school bus stops. Last week there was a murder in a town about 10 minutes away from my house. There hasn’t been an arrest in either of these cases.If in either of these instances the perps had desided to hide out in my house, possibly doing harm to me or my family in order to make sure that nobody was able to call the police, shouldn’t I have at least had the option to defend myself? By the time the police got there it would have been to late.
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Mr. Pink
You do whatever you want on your own property. Again, I said “reform.” I did not say that the second amendment needs to be revoked. There needs to be more responsible laws in place regarding the sale and purchase of guns. There needs to be stricter penalties for gun violence. Waiting periods and saftey training are also a must.
I see no problem with people who purchase guns for sport, or for the paranoid who feel that they need to have one in their home for saftey. However, violence in this country is a problem and as citizens we should take all reasonable measures to make society safer. This includes, but is not limited to gun reform. We could also do with funding police and fire departments better. Neighborhood watches, home security systems and afterschool activities to keep kids off the streets would also help.
And to address others earlier–what about rapists and burgulars, etc.? A can of mace can be quite effective when used properly. I know this from personal experience.
Guns are not the way to saftey. Violence only begets more violence. Give peace a chance. 🙂
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A bullet is final. Mace is temporary.
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I also just want to note that open discourse on all sides of the political spectrum is a good thing. It’s when Americans fail to challenge each other’s beliefs that this country will truly be in trouble. That’s why I’m posting here. I found you off the main page. Thus far, you’re interesting. I may spend some time here, so “hi.”
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Thanks, and hi to you also. I agree that open discourse is healthy. I have enjoyed this debate. When people come here and want to debate, I like it. I encourage it.
By the way, I think you just called me paranoid. 🙂
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I just may have. 🙂
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@ Open Letter and Pinkeyes: Is the gun issue now more a 9th or 10th Amendment issue ?
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“…or for the paranoid who feel that they need to have one in their home for saftey”
Like that paranoid nut job Geoff Hamann from Rochester, NH?
A couple years ago, some guy took his clothes off, crawled in through a window in his house, and started walking toward the bedroom where his wife and daughter were, while yelling “I’m gonna get you!” and clutching a tube of mechanical lubricant.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Hamann was not overcome with the urge to brew up a pot of tea and sit down with this guy to “negotiate a settlement”.
“OK, pal, rape my wife, but leave my daughter alone. Then take half my valuables on your way out.”
Nice compromise.
No, instead, Mr. Hamann shot and killed this scumbag with the gun that he kept to in his house for the sole purpose of protecting his family.
These stories play themselves out everyday in this country. Sick, violent people preying on the innocent. Just becuase they don’t show up on your MoveOn,org newsfeed, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Wake up to the world around you.
As to that “violence begets more violence” comment, I say, HELL YES, you bet your ass it does. If someone is threatening my wife and daughters with violence, you can be damn sure I will ready, willing and able to dish out a greater amount of violence in return, whatever level of violence might be required on my part to end the threat at hand.
Your childish argument fails to differentiate between predatory violence and protective violence. In the mind of a pacifist, all violence is bad. Feel free to believe that, but don;t expect me to embrace such a foolish, unrealistic philosophy.
I have no problem reaching “common ground” on the gun issue, but to do that we need to scrub all gun control laws from the books and start anew.
To do otherwise is to say, “OK, here’s 20,000 gun laws already on the books, now let’s compromise by adding more. How come the people who seek “compromise” never suggest eliminating some of the more useless gun laws as a starting point for this negotiating process?
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Alfie, I’m not sure what you mean. I guess in a way that could be true. These amendments insure that the federal government doesn’t overstep it’s bounds, so maybe that is where we are headed. To me the second amendment is so cut and dry that there should be no questions that need to be resolved by the nineth and tenth amendments.
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@ Bruce
1. I am not a member of MoveOn.org. You know what they say about those who assume?
2. Good for Mr. Hamann. If you’ll note, I never said that one shouldn’t be allowed to protect themselves in their own home. I did say “paranoid” but I didn’t say that it should be illegal.
3. Calling me childish is unnecessary. Simply because I believe something different than you do does not mean that I’m less intelligent or even naive.
4. “I have no problem reaching “common ground” on the gun issue, but to do that we need to scrub all gun control laws from the books and start anew.” Starting anew might be the best idea that I’ve heard. Really. That sounds fair.
By the way, I’m not the enemy. I’m another concerned citizen who would prefer that the U.S. be a safe, responsible land of freedom. I think that could be common ground, no?
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@ Alfie
I think it remains a 2nd amendment issue. I think the only way it ventures into a 9th or 10th issue is if the government would attempt to ban all guns outright without repealing the 2nd amendment.
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Yet the 10th essentially is the keystone for states to pass all the gun control laws that exist today.
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Interesting point Alfie.
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I think the author of this article is assuming the woman hates men; I don’t see any mention of men in her quote. I see the assignation of men to her statement about “image and ego” but surely there are women who bear arms as well. I think the “male” aspect is a distraction from the point of this topic.
It’s not totally far-fetched to reconsider the second amendment. Militias in America are an outdated concept in comparison to the current military force of the US. Militias and civilians bearing arms made sense throughout America’s westward land expansion, which continued into the 1800s (The Alamo anyone?), not just during the war against Britain. But I think after America entered WWI and established itself as a non-isolationist global military force, the need for a militia in America fell out of style. And by WWII, we had established ourselves as the dominant military force in the world.
Just consider now the role of militia in a wartime scenario; do you really believe untrained civilians would be effective in defending America? Against biological weapons, nuclear weapons, armored vehicles, etc. the civilian militia is such an outdated concept now, at least in America. As America grew massively in geographic size and in population things necessarily became institutionalized. The Second Amendment has essentially led to the creation of the US National Guard, which unsurprisingly corresponds roughly to America’s entry into World War I, which marked the “globalization” of the US military. It was a trade-off, as the US Military assumed a global responsibility as well.
Case-in-point, civilian militias are totally out of place in today’s American society. Personal defense is relevant, but I don’t believe is truly represented in the Second Amendment any more.
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I think the Second Amendment causes more trouble than it’s really worth and the Tenth is much more pertinent; we have the US Military, National Guard, so let states decide what laws are required in the possession of arms for personal safety.
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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.
Some key words there some people would chose to not see
1) PEOPLE
Which pertains to the individual citizens, as does every other right that the constitution declares as a god given right of every person ever born.
PEOPLE refers to no official or unofficial organization, it refers to individual citizens.
It is not and can not be interpreted any other way.
2)STATE
Not country, not nation, but STATE.
These United States are just that, separate individual free states.
United through the acceptance of a comon set of ideals, but still individual and free.
But they must abide by the common set of ideals they agreed upon when they joined the other united states.
They may at no time remove any right that they accepted as god given to all PEOPLE.
3) MILITIA
Time to perhaps grab a dictionary with a proper period definition rather than some politcaly reformulated one.
Militia is a body of free unscripted men.
They are not generaly paid, though nothing says they cant be given compensation.
They are under contract to no one, and belong to no governing agency.
They are expected to provide their own arms.
4)WELL REGULATED
Which simply means it is goodly functional, it doesnt mean it is governed or overseen or subjected to some fegeral regulations.
So the amendment says that in order for the state to be free it requires that the free men living in the state MUST be able to keep and bear arms to defend it.
It does not limit what they are allowed to defend it from.
They may defend it from persons who wish to infringe upon the rights of other citizens, they may defend it from any invading body, they may defend it against a central government gone rogue, or any other thing that threatens it.
Nor does the amendment make any limitations on “Arms”
It does not say long arms, hunting arms, pistols, cannons, etc.
Some may call the lack of variousspecifications an oversight on the part of the authors but it is not, it is totaly intentional.
No one can attempt to limit rights in a preemptive move to eliminate them, at least unless the people allow themselves to be trodden on.
While you are mucking hit and miss through the constitution and the declaration of independance, you might try actualy reading things in thier entirety.
You might just remember coming across the part where it says that, the PEOPLE retain the god given right to remove and or reform the governing bodies, including federal govt, by force if necessary, at any point that said bodies should no longer serve the PEOPLE, or should said bodies become weapons to bear upon the PEOPLE.
To those who think the 2nd amendment is outdated trash, i say this to you.
If god forbid, someone enters your home or where ever you may be, and thier intention is not to talk or negotiate (which it usualy is not) Who will provide you with your best chance of not being killed? Your child being raped? Your property stolen? Your nieghbor violated?
It is not the police, there are too few of them, and too many of you.
Police generaly can only react after the fact.
It is not the state or federal military, they do not even know you exist.
They dont happen to be deployed in your spare bedroom.
You are the only thing close enough, you are the only person who can be there fast enough.
Only the individual can truely protect the individual.
Only when the individuals relearn to protect themselves can they begin to relearn how to protect thier communities and more.
But if you give up your tools of protection, you wont have the chance to relearn anything.
Sad is it maybe to have to admit it to yourselves, the firearm is the great equalizer.
The 90 pound woman is now on equal or better ground than her 200 pound knife wielding would be rapist, who will definately NOT be open to any peaceful negotiatons.
If you flush away this right, she wont have any way of trying to assure herself of her others.
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