Guns are scary. Guns, in the hands of the wrong people, are dangerous.

Guns, however, do not kill people unless a round is discharged by a living, breathing human being, or possibly when mishandled, such as being dropped.

In her Another View, Linda Wojciechowski advocates repealing the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a way to prevent massacres such as those in the Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

She mentions times, such as the abolition of slavery and giving women voting rights, when the Constitution was amended.

What she fails to mention is that these two particular amendments gave additional rights to U.S. citizens. They did not take away rights.

She also mentions Prohibition. Well, that was a real success.

Chicago, where gangsters ruled, was like the Wild West.

Speakeasies, selling illegal alcohol, flourished in the Roaring Twenties.

Bootleggers in the mountains of Appalachia were generally one step ahead of the “revenuers,” their term for officers from the department of revenue.

Yes, Prohibition was repealed, after the government finally realized Americans were not going to give up their booze, and money could be made for the U.S. coffers through taxation.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 47-53 shooting down four amendments that would have added additional gun control regulations to those already on the books.

The first amendment, sponsored by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, required background checks for all gun sales (including gun shows) and additional information to be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The second, by Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would have increased funding for that background check system. The amendment would have also made clearer the wording regarding mental health issues and the ability to purchase guns.

The amendment put forth by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, would have barred the sale of guns and explosives to anyone suspected of being a terrorist.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, sponsored the fourth amendment that would have allowed the government to delay gun sales to a suspected terrorist for 72 hours. Probable cause would have been needed to block the sale permanently.

A possible vote, on a fifth bill sponsored by Susan Collins, R-Maine, may be taken this week.

Expanded background checks and preventing potential terrorists from obtaining semi-automatic weapons may not be drastic measures to take, but just as with Prohibition, if certain guns are banned or as Wojciechowski advocates, the Second Amendment were to be repealed, the black market will ensure the weapons are still available, and there will be no background checks of any type.

And, if semi-automatics were not available, the threat of terrorists using radioactive dirty bombs is a real possibility.

Throwing the baby out with the bath water is not a solution.

“See something, say something” has long been the mantra since the attacks on this country by Islamic terrorists began.

Perhaps, a better slogan should be directed at law enforcement agencies and the legal system: “If someone reports something, DO SOMETHING!”

The FBI interviewed the Orlando terrorist Omar Siddiqui Mateen at least twice.

Illegal immigrants, including possible terrorists, are crossing our borders daily.

And let’s not forget some of the 9/11 Islamic terrorists entered this country legally on visas.

Hani Hanjour, the Saudi Arabian terrorist who piloted American Airlines Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon, entered on a student visa.

Of the remaining 18 mass murderers, 14 came on tourist visas and four came on business visas.

Why do the agencies designated to protect American citizens and delegated with the responsibility of protecting our borders remain asleep at the switch so many years after 9/11?

In the 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,” the Founding Fathers, in part, gave American citizens the right to bear arms to protect us against a tyrannical government.

Maybe they should have added the phrase “feckless government.”

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press