Founders didn’t see this coming

Almost all of the recent mass shootings in America were accomplished by a shooter who obtained his guns legally.

Is this really what people want from the Second Amendment? The legal right for mass shooters to purchase weapons to kill random people on the street? I doubt the Founding Fathers had the current situation in mind when they set down the right for private citizens to own guns.

George Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Right now, conservatives are constantly reminding everyone that gun ownership is guaranteed by an amendment ratified 230 years ago. That is certainly the past.

But we have no trouble remembering it, because what is endlessly repeated is the consequences of our Founding Fathers’ decision: Every would-be killer has no trouble obtaining the weapons to fulfill his twisted ambitions. Is this the way we want to live? A country where bulletproof vests are a necessary item of clothing?