The majority opinion of the Supreme Court, in its ruling on New York’s gun law, favors the right of people to carry guns around over the right of public safety. One concludes from this ruling that it is more important to bear arms than it is to be protected from getting shot.

This “originalist” school of interpreting the Constitution appears to believe that the founders knew everything there was to know about life and that new circumstances do not demand new decisions about the public good. How absurd!

In 1789 there were no police, no national guard, no great store of weapons. The second amendment states the right of citizens to keep and bear arms in case they were needed for national defense. Today, we face a completely different context. There are more guns than people.

People are being shot every day. Federal and state government face the challenge of figuring out how to keep so many people from dying needlessly in this epidemic of violence. The six justices who concur in the majority opinion are foolish if they believe that 240 years ago we knew all we need to know about how to secure the safety of this nation. On average, more than 2 people commit suicide every hour with a gun. On average, about one person is killed every hour with a gun. Perhaps the justices could take note of that fact and admit that there are already too many guns, and that to rule in favor of more guns, more open carrying of them, and fewer restrictions, simply means more, and more, death.

— Sam Pendergrast, Rome