The First Four Words One of my favorite comedians, Eddie Izzard, commented on Americas love/hate relationship with guns,

in his San Francisco HBO show Dressed to Kill, saying, And the National Rifle Association says that, Guns don't kill people, people do, but I think the gun helps, you know? I think it helps. I just think just standing there going, Bang! That's not going to kill too many people, is it? A 24 year-old Neuroscience Ph.D. student from Colorado, dressed in the same attire as a swat police officer, entered into an overnight showing of the latest Batman movie, and shot a total of 71 people and, out of those, killed 12 men, women, and children. He had purchased everything, including the guns, legally. It only took one person to kill and maim so many peoplethink about that. What if there had been five or ten of this killer, well organized, well trained, and well intentioned. I waited for my daughters to rise out of the teenage stupor to talk to them about what had happened, and why it is people can and will continue to kill while those who would continue to claim that the Constitution protects the people under the notion of the rights to bear arms. My daughters sat across from me, their bedhead well disheveled, and with sleep still left in their eyes I turned on the news to show them the massacre. It scared them. It scared them that anyone could walk into a school, a theater, a restaurant, and just start killing with a gun. It also scared them that those guns can be purchased legally. Since weve moved back to Madera, we feel as if weve step through the Twilight Zone. Weve heard all sorts of crazy things: If we were to switch to the Metric System, it would make it easier for a communist invasion; Solar power is socialist plot to destroy capitalism; (and my personal favorite) Syphilis was engineered by the government. Yeah, thats good one. Crazy, dont you think? Heres another one: Whenever I ask people to recite the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of American, the answer I get around here is the right to bear arms. Thats it. That is all anyone ever says to me: The Right to Bear Arms. After these same people emphatically gesticulate with their index finger pointing straight into the air---its impolite for descendants of Southerners to point their finger at peoplethey then followed it up with their version of history. Their version of historical precedence is that well, we have to own guns just in case the government gets too powerful and corrupt, so the people can rise up, and put a new government in its place. I have heard this excuse espoused since I was a little boy, but one thing always troubled me: How do you overthrow a powerfully corrupt government with hand guns and hunting rifles? I must apologize for my rudimentary thinkingI was a boy, after all.

Well, now Im no longer a boy, but I have to ask this question: Why does everyone, including Democrats, ignore the first four (4) words of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I went On-line and found a copy of the Bill of Rights (most people dont know they are the first ten amendments of the Constitution) and showed my daughters exactly how it was written over 200 years ago. It reads, 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. I asked my daughters, What do you think a well regulated Militia means? They both looked at the word Militia and reasoned that it looked like the word military. I told them that they were on the right track, so I described Militia for them: A well trained group of individuals, bound to protect the people by the use of physical force, if need be, armed with weapons. So, I asked them, If you were to use a word, other than Militia, what word would we use today that would fit that definition. By this time, they cleared the sleep in their eyes, and their hair seemed to have groomed itself over conversation, Police? they said with a plaintive shrug of the shoulders. The police or the National Guard, I replied. My 17 year old then asked, Why do people ignore the first four words of the Second Amendment? Thats good question. No, thats great question: Why do Americans omit the first four words of the Second Amendment? Why?