Second Amendment: “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”. On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Don’t you wish you could have a chat with the men who wrote these words more than 200 years ago? I would love the opportunity to interview them, invite them to express what they really intended but mostly to hear their reactions to the ways we have tried to interpret their words, the ways we disagree so strongly, and the tragic results of our disagreement. Imagine what they would say.

I believe that the framers of the Second Amendment to the Constitution wanted to protect their new nation from attack, if one ever came, so to protect against that, they wrote an amendment that provided for a well-regulated army of citizens who would be allowed to bear arms to equip them to fight back and defend our nation against such an attack. That’s clear to me. That’s why they began with those first 12 words.

But today an army of people conveniently ignore the opening clause of this amendment and read it to mean that everyone should have the right to bear arms everywhere for any purpose. That this is abused should surprise no one. That it has led to the deaths of countless innocent Americans outrages me. How about you?

Shall we permit an obscenely wealthy organization to perversely interpret this amendment in such a way that gives it the power to control our laws and thus our lives? And our deaths? We know the answer to that.

This power threatens the security of our free state from within. At this same moment in our history, the security of our free state is threatened from without as an enemy nation tampers with what we thought were our free elections.

What are we to do? Can we remove the weapons of power and influence from this wealthy,  singularly committed organization? Only by taking them away, and I’m not taking about their guns but their pervasive influence over our elected officials whose loyalty they purchase at the expense of our lives and the lives of our children. Spineless members of Congress have demonstrated where their loyalties lie, and they are not with us.

Our only recourse is to choose elected officials with morals, guts and a conscience. It’s up to us.