Consider the Second Amendment.

Amendment II

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.

It is, of course, axiomatic that this amendment confers an individual right, for in every other instance in the Bill of Rights where the phrase "the people" is used it denotes a right which devolves upon the individual.

Which leads me to a simple question -- if the right to keep and bear arms allows us access to weapons with serious potential for lethality, should it not also be interpreted to include the right to carry non-lethal weaponry for the purpose of self-defense, such as a TASER, a stun gun, or mace pepper spray?

After all, I'm not really interested in killing a potential assailant or robber -- I'd just like to disable them long enough to secure my person and property. Yet current law in many parts of the country places restrictions upon my ability to do so, especially with regards to something like a stun gun. Consider the device pictured below.

This device packs a measly 65,000 volts of power -- a far cry from the 500,000 volt jolt that one receives from its bigger brothers used by law enforcement. It is a deterrent with some stopping power -- and quite frankly, I'd rather shock an assailant's butt across the room than leave them pumping their life-blood on the carpet. Maybe I'm just a bleeding heart in that regard, but I would prefer a weapon which makes it less likely that I will violate the injunction "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

So what do you think -- should We, the People of the United States, be free to carry non-lethal weapons for self-defense purposes? Is such a right consistent with the underlying intent of the Second Amendment? Or is that right only properly exercised by carrying the means of dealing out lethal force? Join in and share in the discussion.

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Posted by: Greg at 06:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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