Stripping the Second Amendment protections of American civil right to own a firearm is not the answer to mass shootings and will lead to more harm than good. 

People are angry and heartbroken and some are scared because of another mass shooting in our country. It is natural to look for a quick answer to the problem. Of course, quick answers to complex problems only work as bumper stickers.

Blaming one of the oldest and most prestigious civil rights organizations in the world is cheap and foolish - the National Rifle Association has done more than any of its critics to prevent firearm deaths and injuries. The members and supporters of the NRA spend millions of their own dollars each year to educate children on the proper use of firearms. It is impossible to calculate the number of lives the NRA has helped to save and improve through their volunteer outreach to children and families.

Don't listen to the rhetoric of craven politicians who use a massacre of children to push their personal agenda. It is a twisted mind that exploits dead children. They aren't interested in the dead child in the box at the morgue, they are interested in the scared person at the ballot box. Cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit and Washington D.C. have near total firearm bans in place yet people are murdered there every day by disturbed individuals with evil in their heart and mind. Public policy should be based on facts, not emotional outbursts.

The liberal community in America used to defend the Bill of Rights including the Second Amendment. But that was before the left decided the First Amendment was really there to protect child pornographers and not political speech and the Second Amendment was for the government to control firearms, not the individual citizens to own firearms.

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." - This is a quote from former Vice President Hubert Humphrey a long time liberal and the Democrat nominee for president in 1968.

I encourage you to read a small book by Les Adams called The Second Amendment Primer - it's a book that is protected by the First Amendment.

Editor's Note: Chris McCarthy is the host of The Chris McCarthy Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from 10 a.m.-Noon. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. 

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