I am not a Constitutional scholar. I am not a lawyer. I haven’t spent years of my life dedicated to the understanding of the ways our system of laws work. I’m just a guy who, in all honesty, had his interest in the Founding Fathers sparked because of Hamilton: An American Musical. Over the course of the last year I’ve read Ron Chernow’s books on Hamilton and Washington. I’ve read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and all the Amendments. I’ve read the Federalist papers.

At this moment, as we’re looking at another series of school shootings in our country, I’m particularly thinking about how everything I’ve read in the last year squares up with what our current situation is in this country.

Hamilton was opposed to a Bill of Rights for the Constitution, simply due to the fact that he was concerned it would set a precedent that would expand the powers of the Federal Government beyond what the Constitution intended. His reasoning was that, by declaring that the Government specifically could NOT pass legislation removing certain rights, the implication was that the Government HAD the power to pass laws not expressly forbidden by the amendments. The Government had, for example, no right to restrict the freedom of the press in the original document. It was, therefore, unnecessary for there to be an Amendment specifically stating that they could not do it. Fast Forward to now, and in order to prevent the Federal Government from passing a law restricting flag burning, for example, and you are forced to classify Flag Burning as “speech.”

Now take this data and turn it to guns. Here you have the opposite problem. Because the Bill of Rights specifically protects the right of the people to “keep and bear arms”, the Federal AND State Governments have found themselves in a situation where any attempt to pass reasonable gun legislation becomes a “Constitutional Crisis.” The truly amusing thing about all of this is that some people view the Second Amendment as proof the the Founders wanted everyone armed, when that is far from true. At the time the Constitution passed, all thirteen states had some sort of gun legislation in their Constitutions. Hamilton was terrified by the prospect of armed mobs. In many states, in order to own a gun you had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.

And while I know this argument has been made, unsuccessfully, thousands of times…What the Founding Fathers viewed as “arms” back in the 1700’s and the weapons we have available to us today are so radically different as to be virtually unrecognizable in the same context. According to a completely random internet forum I just found using Google, a highly-skilled re-enactor can fire a flintlock rifle six times in one minute…while standing completely still…

Those are the “arms” the Second Amendment was written about.

Keep and bear those all you want, folks. That’s not at all what I’m worried about these days.

I don’t really have any sort of major point in writing this, or a solution, or…really anything. I’m numb, and I keep seeing people say that the solution is MORE guns and MORE metal detectors and MORE walls and fences and borders…and I just keep thinking…This is not the world we should want to live in. We shouldn’t need to be locked in amber to feel safe. I don’t want schools to be fortresses.

I want there to be less guns.

Much less.

Like…none.

But instead I’m thinking that I need to buy one.

So. There it is.