This letter is in regard to Greg Bean’s comments on gun control in the Jan. 24 issue of the Suburban.
The Jefferson Memorial was commissioned and built during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s tenure. He personally initiated it. He was also the one who tried to “pack” the Supreme Court to circumvent constitutional limitations on federal power. Mr. Bean’s column mentions a Thomas Jefferson quote that is on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial. Of course, that quote was probably hand selected on behalf of Roosevelt to fit his political views. Jefferson is the one who also (in a 1787 letter to William Smith) said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” He wrote in the drafts of the Virginia Constitution, “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” George Mason, the co-author of the Second Amendment, during the Constitutional Convention, said: “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” It’s clear what was meant by the Second Amendment to anyone who has any respect for the Constitution authors’ stated intent.
And there is a mechanism provided in the Constitution for the more fundamental changes referred to by Jefferson in his monument quote. It’s the use of a constitutional amendment. It’s not legislative action, nor, certainly, presidential decree.
John Susko
East Brunswick