Newspaper editors reap the benefits of our Constitution’s First Amendment and expect us to accept a literal or exact meaning of it.  Can you blame them since it helps provide them with their livelihood. Funny how so many of them like to blame guns whenever a shooting occurs. 

Where is their expectation for a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment? “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Note that our NY Constitution does not contain this language, but NY civil law uses the term “cannot” be infringed. 

Those who like to blame guns after recent mass shootings should recall when the Buffalo shooter said he chose New York because its strict gun laws made armed opposition less likely.  Shooters often choose a “gun free zone”.  Why? No doubt less likely to run into a “good guy with a gun”.  There might have been a totally different outcome with one or more concealed-carry customers in the store. 

The CDC, in 2021, published a “fact sheet” showing estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States. Lives can be preserved by relying on the Second Amendment just as livelihoods are preserved by the First Amendment. 

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