Second Amendment needs clarification

The rush of people to get gun permits, now that Iowa has a “shall issue” law taking discretion away from sheriffs, has some people worried. While most of the guns will never be used to harm anyone, a few of them will be.

Those most likely to die are gun owners themselves in acts of suicide. State statistics from 1996-98 showed 176 gun suicides (81 percent of gun deaths), 34 (16 percent) from gun homicides, and seven (3 percent) unintentional (Gun Suicides in Iowa, 1996-98, Brigham and Johnson). Four times as many people died from self-inflicted wounds as were killed by others.

If this pattern persists, the people in greatest danger from gun ownership are those who have the guns.

Those in second-greatest danger are the people closest to the gun owners - family members, significant others, co-workers, those involved in bar fights. They become the target of the “disgruntled.”

It would have been wiser for our U.S. Supreme Court to interpret the Second Amendment as emphasizing the need for “well-regulated militias for the security of the state” rather than the individual right to own a gun. The Second Amendment was written for the benefit of the state, not the individual. In our century it is outdated.

The beneficiary is now the gun industry, not the state or the individual.

Jeremy Brigham

Cedar Rapids