TexasCHLforum.com

My reply was:

Yes, malls should be safe from violence, but turning them into "gun free zones" merely makes them target righ environments for crazies bent on going out in a blaze of glory.

The Violence Policy Center's statistics notwithstanding (you don't actually believe THEM do you?) the best deterrent to massacres like Omaha is armed citizens, like Jeanne Assam in Colorado Springs.

As for the big nasty government crushing any rebellion, maybe a quick glance at history would indicate something different - check up on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and there are many more examples, which go so far as to include the American Revolution.

The Second Amendment protects a pre-existing right, and taken in contest it even goes so far as to include arms beyond rifles and handguns. Recall that the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had the recent rebellion fresh in their minds, and that the battles at Lexington and Concord were about the (legitimate and quite ruthless) government's attempt to seize cannon and ammunition from those who were in felonious rebellion.

The Second Amendment is as relevant today as it has ever been, and it has always been about an individual right.

Since I just had a letter published last week, I don't expect it to be published, but if we unleash a bunch some will get through.

Midgen's piece was published as OpEd rather than a letter.