Letter: To stop killings, ban all guns

Do you want to stop the mass shootings, the drive-by shootings, the carjackings, the smash and grabs? Ban the guns. Ban ALL the guns.

Ban assault weapons? Large capacity magazines? Universal background checks? Red flag laws?

We're just nibbling around the edges of the central, fundamental twofold problem: the ridiculously easy access to a lethal weapon by virtually anyone (in a nation of 330 million souls, it is estimated that there are more than 350 million guns), and the disturbing, overwhelming number of deranged, amoral, criminal-minded punks and thugs more than willing, even eager, to use them.

The Second Amendment? The Second Amendment is obsolete and irrelevant, and has been since the Civil War. What gun owner belongs to a "well-regulated militia," the fundamental underlying rationale for the following statement: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?"

Recently the Supreme Court struck down a Washington, D.C., ordinance banning the possession of handguns in the district. That ruling held that the clause referring to well-regulated militias was only "prefatory" in nature and does not limit or expand the "operational" clause that guarantees a right to keep and bear arms. That ruling is wrongheaded, misguided, and ignorant.

Let's be clear: there is NO constitutional right to possession of a gun for self-defense. The Second Amendment does not say that. It doesn't suggest that. It doesn't imply that.

We are not safe anywhere. Not in our grocery stores, movie theaters, churches, schools, parade grounds, parked cars, anywhere. Because every lunatic has a gun. Let's restrict guns to the primary purpose for which they were intended.

Conrad Bertz

Palatine