In 1791, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. If someone wanted to kill 19 fourth-grade kids with a gun, if that horrific notion was conceivable at the time, here’s how they’d do it. First, they would grab their flintlock rifle and powder horn. Next, they would pull a small plug from the pointed tip of your powder horn and pour powder down the gun barrel. Then they would take the gun’s ramrod, a wooden stick used to tamp down and compress the powder.

After that they would take a lead ball, wrap it in a small piece of cloth so it would fit snugly and force it down the barrel with the ramrod. Then they would need to hold the gun upright so the barrel was parallel to the ground and carefully pour the powder into a small trough leading to a hole connected to the gunpowder lodged in the gun’s barrel. Next, they would close the cap covering the powder in the trough ...pull back the firing hammer till it clicked ...aim and pull the trigger sparking flint ...flashing the powder in the trough ...igniting the gunpowder inside the barrel and boom! Then repeat the reloading task 18 times.

It would take about 30 seconds for a pioneer to reload and fire the next musket ball in 1791. But give them an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle or Glock pistol and they could fire over 60 bullets in the same 30 seconds.

In drafting the Second Amendment James Madison couldn’t have conceived of today’s devastating firearm power any more than imagining a buggy pulled by 400 horses traveling down Post Road at 160 miles per hour. But if the likes of Madison had vivid insight into the crystal ball's future murderous dilemmas, would he have revised the Second Amendment to save the children?

Today’s Congress must consider updating the Second Amendment to fit the times, not of 231 years past during the era of flintlocks when mass murder from a single gun was inconceivable.

Chuck Davidson

Cragsmoor