THE RIGHT TO BEAR CARS

with the seemingly weekly tragedies involving often deranged people using guns to commit violence, there is an increase in calls for more gun regulation. guns rights folks roll out the Second Amendment. "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear arms, shall not be infringed." it is a long time since i took constitutional law in college. it seems in a plain, common sense reading to mean to me that this right to bear arms is connected to needing a well regulated militia. and it says, "well regulated". anyhow the gun rights folks ( and by the way, i own two shot guns that i use occasionally to hunt birds or shoot trap ) stand on the last clause as inviolate. i am not enough of a law scholar to go much further with a legal analysis but lets try an analogy most Americans own a car. or it seem so in LA. when we buy the car our identity is checked, our having a valid drivers license is checked, our having insurance is required. the car has a unique VIN. we have to register it with the DMV; every year. we have to take a test both written and driving to get a license. its pretty damn regulated! now if LA had a constitution it would no doubt have in it the right to bear cars. are guns more dangerous than cars? in LA its a toss up. but given what we put up to own and drive a car, is it too much to have something similar for guns? now a lot of these shootings are by crazy people. look up crazy in the DSM. we have a mental health problem in this country; not just a gun problem. the number of psychiatric beds in the US has declined from 558,922 in 1955 to 43,318 in 2010. this is a big problem. the subject of another blog.