2nd Amendment shouldn't include assault rifles

At the time this letter is being written, the U.S. Supreme Court is debating its interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says, "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."

The amendment was ratified on Dec. 15, 1791, when AK-47s and similar military weapons weren't on the market at gun shows or on the Internet.

Tim Rutten, writing in the L.A. Times, cited the fact that "over the years, 11 of the 13 federal appellate districts have held that Second Amendment rights are collective, pertaining, as the Constitution says, to the maintenance of "a well ordered militia."

Recently, however, a court in the District of Columbia struck down that jurisdiction's handgun ban, ruling that the Second Amendment confers individual rights to gun ownership.

In his column, Rutten wrote that the student victims of recent school massacres do not need prayers. "Prayers won't bring back the dead or make the living safer. Our children do not need prayers; they need leaders with a modicum of courage." Samuel Rosen Newbury Park