Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Evan Andrews [Click to enlarge]

It takes a reflective look into the Second Amendment and the era of our Founding Fathers to see the truth. With a little common sense, it's easy to see the lock, stock and barrel of the gun control issue and the true solution clearly doesn't place its hopes on non-lethal weapons or any other threatening attempts at 'progress.' The real solution lies in exercising our God-given rights to semi-automatic assault weapons and going a step further by returning to our gun-slinging roots. You guessed it - it's time to legalize dueling.

The only fact more evident than the sudden relevance of dueling is the foremost need to preserve the mindset and reasoning behind the Second Amendment's establishment. It would be foolish to say dueling was a cornerstone of the Founding Fathers' reasoning to defend the burgeoning new country with an armed militia, but we have few qualms in reinterpreting their words to defend modern weapon entertainment.

The culture during the time period in which the U.S. Constitution was written had the particularly curious institution of dueling. Protecting one's honor more than warranted the invocation of a challenge and the risk of death. Prominent and trivial characters alike often found themselves fighting for their lives and, more importantly, their faces. Dueling wasn't a peculiarity; it was a fact of life, and refusing a duel was not an option.

The history of dueling may stretch beyond the ubiquity of firearms, but the American trailblazers understandably wanted to rid themselves of such antiquated and deleterious traditions. Despite this aversion, dueling continued in the new world and the old, even leading to the popular Burr-Hamilton duel, where sitting vice-president Aaron Burr ended up killing Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. In fact, the South came to particularly appreciate the tradition as recently as the first half of the 19th century.

Like many ideas too early for their time, dueling fell out of favor and was quickly persecuted, setting a dangerous precedent of attack on personal freedoms. Often described as a shameful and archaic practice, the institution soon felt the unforgiving wrath of a thoughtful society.

Continued...

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