Gloucester Daily Times
---- — To the editor:
A letter to the Gloucester Daily Times (”Focus on mental health, not gun control,” Feb. 20) pointing out that our founding fathers worked hard to forge a workable Constitution and Bill of Rights suggests that we not forget history when we think to change those documents.
Well said. But the letter writer and I differ in our understanding of that history.
I have always read the Second Amendment as a way for the people to create a volunteer militia to assist the government in repelling exterior threats, not as a way for people to protect themselves from their own legitimately elected government.
I do believe in history’s lessons, one of the most important of which is this: The most evil and dangerous governments in history came to power using fear, misinformation, and scapegoating of those with differing beliefs.
SHARRON COHEN
Gloucester
