Letter: Must this really be 'our new normal'?

I heard perhaps the saddest thing ever today during the coverage of the Highland Park shooting. It was suggested by more than one commentator that this is the new normal; we should expect to have to check our surroundings and have an escape plan whenever we're in public. Let that sink in.

The people who attended the parade in Highland Park were supposed to plan an escape route as a natural course of action. All so people could have the right to own and carry high powered rifles with large magazines. Again, let that sink in. Your family can't go out for a 4th of July celebration without preparing to be gunned down.

Is this truly what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment? Of course, it's not. The Second Amendment was created because the Founders were loath to have a standing army and were counting on militias to protect the country.

We now have a standing army and one would think the militias were no longer necessary, so is the Second Amendment as written still necessary? No, it is not.

The arguments over the Second Amendment call to mind the battles over slavery in the 19th century.

The Second Amendment has become the new Three-Fifths Compromise only instead of the South having out of proportion power because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, we are now held sway to the NRA and their money.

We must reverse this. The right to own firearms should not take precedence over our right to enjoy life without the fear of being gunned down like fish in a barrel. It is time to repeal and replace the Second Amendment acknowledging the current realities of our world. I'm sure James Madison, the "father" of the Bill of Rights, would agree.

Mary Hunter

Hoffman Estates