Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor:
“You can do many things with bayonets, but it is rather uncomfortable to sit on them.” The quote is attributed to Prince Talleyrand of 17th century France to Napoleon Bonaparte. The quote seems to me to be analogous to the American gun culture of the 21st century i.e., you can do many things with guns except sit on them. And sit on them Americans don’t. Along with their cell phones, Americans travel everywhere with guns.
On Memorial Day weekend at MacNider campgrounds in Mason City, a camper sustained a gunshot over a disagreement about a parking issue. Just three days earlier, a Subway customer in Atlanta shot and killed one worker and sent another to the hospital over an argument about the amount of mayo on his sandwich.
The American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reports in 2021 seizing at terminal check points a 20-year record number of guns (5,972), most of them loaded. Talleyrand observed sitting on bayonets can be most uncomfortable and not their intended purpose. Brandishing a gun is awkward, unless you think you’re going to use it for the purpose for which it is made. I think you know where I’m heading here.
I can just hear the second amendment outliers howling about the infringement of their right to bear arms. The right to bear guns to protect you from not getting enough mayo, or a disagreement over a parking space, has nothing whatsoever to do with the right afforded by the second amendment. Unless, of course, you believe the second amendment guarantees you the right to shoot someone because you didn’t get enough mayo on your sandwich.
The U.S. Supreme Court in a 2008 ruling, clarified an individual’s right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense, but denied that the second amendment provides an unlimited license to bring weapons into all corners of American society. Justice Scalia explicitly noted, that the second amendment is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, and for whatever purpose.”
In November, Iowans will enter the voting booth to vote for political candidates and for second amendment language to the Iowa Constitution, at a time when gun deaths are rising in Iowa. Passage of the constitutional amendment would threaten the state’s gun safety laws by applying a “strict scrutiny” standard. Only three states (Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri) have ever adopted this dangerous standard into their constitutions. These states have taken the most radical steps to deregulate guns and their gun death rates are much higher than Iowa’s.
Further, if experience is any revelation, the amendment could endanger all of Iowa’s gun laws. It’s conceivable, a person without a permit for a handgun (now permitted by Iowa law), could shoot a fast-food restaurant employee for not putting enough mayo on a sandwich and claim second amendment rights and not be found guilty under this provision.
I encourage Iowa voters in November to ote NO on this dangerous constitutional amendment.
Rev. Jerry Robertson
Lake Mills