Letters: 2nd Amendment didn’t anticipate today’s guns

The Second Amendment, enacted in 1779, says: “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.” Arms in 1779 were cap-and-ball muskets and handguns. It took more than a minute, using a ram rod, to reload after one shot. The framers of the Second Amendment had no concept of semiautomatic rifles and handguns that would fire bullets at the rate of one per second.

The Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 was passed by the District of Columbia banning handguns, automatic and semiautomatic rifles, sawed-off shotguns and short-barreled rifles. In 2008 in Heller v. The United States, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1975 law by a 5-4 vote. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion but said the right to bear arms is subject to regulation, i.e., commercial sales and sale of dangerous and unusual weapons.

I believe a semiautomatic rifle that was designed to kill people, that can fire a bullet a second from a high-capacity magazine is certainly a dangerous and unusual weapon. It should not be sold to the general population.