To The Editor,
“You can have it, but you can’t use it,” should be the motto of the RI Senate since its vote to pass the “safe-storage gun bill.” (Senate approves …
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To The Editor,
“You can have it, but you can’t use it,” should be the motto of the RI Senate since its vote to pass the “safe-storage gun bill.” (Senate approves ‘safe-storage’ gun bill, News, March 20)
The Second Amendment was meant to provide the American people with the right to arm themselves to help protect their country from its enemies (foreign and domestic); the right to bear arms for hunting to provide food for their families; and the right to keep and use firearms to protect themselves and their families from home invaders and other attackers.
The key word in the right to protect from home invaders is “use.” One cannot “use” a firearm if it is locked in a safe or other secure container. The secret to stopping a home invader is speed of access to the means to stop the attacker. A gun is useless if it can’t be reached in time for use, and a right is not a right if it can’t be exercised in time for its purpose.
Adding the “locked container” provision to the Second Amendment right is tantamount to adding to the First Amendment a requirement that citizens cannot speak until they have waited a government-prescribed amount of time before voicing their opinions--a period after which the citizen’s opinion is dead to public discourse.
Lonnie Barham
Warwick
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waltmag
Not getting into the wording of this bill, but I would like to comment on the letter. If you have a firearm in your home with access to you, then it is possible it can be accessed by someone else. First of all for the firearm to be used as quickly as you speak of while home for quick action, well I guess it is loaded, or a clip or bullets nearby. Well then if you ever leave your home, I would expect the weapon would be locked safely away so as to not be used by a child, a family member, a neighbor, a house breaker or by someone who wishes you harm. If this is not the case, you are a foolish gun owner. Anyone with a weapon and ammunition laying around or with loaded weapons or even unloaded weapons just waiting for the Boogeyman is either Paranoid, or a fool, or both. That is why we need a bill to control weapons and fools. I am a gunowner of many, many years.
W. Amoroso
85 Rustic Way
Warwick R.I.
Saturday, March 30 Report this