What Richard Poplawski did yesterday can only be summed up as domestic terrorism. He instilled premeditated violence against citizens of this country to further his political beliefs. That is the basis of terrorism.

Now the right will quickly throw out that claim, despite their strong desires to pins some sort of terrorist act under the watch of President Obama. We will now see an amped up effort to “protect the second amendment”, and I think its time for a little refresher:

Amendment 2 – Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

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.

This is a very interesting thing to consider at this point in our history. For the past several years we have heard arguments against our rights in the name of security. We have been told that the government has the right to violate our fourth amendment protection against unjust search and seizure, in order to protect us from a risk of terrorism. We also have been told that the first amendment does not apply when companies like the New York Times publishes “national secrets”.

Now we have an act of domestic terrorism, which resulted in the deaths of some of our front line agents in the fight against terrorism, that can be directly attributed to another right – the second amendment.

One argument on wiretapping was that the laws haven’t kept up with the times. The second amendment was written at a time when fire arms were muzzle loaded. It took a matter of time from one shot to the next. We didn’t have weapons that can fire off a number of rounds per second. Instead it was per minute.

If we want to debate this, then what is exactly entails “Arms”? In today’s world, arms means things besides firearms. A nuclear weapon can be considered “Arms”. So do I have the right to go out and purchase and keep an ICBM? How about a switch blade. Here in Ohio (and many other states) these knives are illegal. Does that mean my right to “bear Arms” is being infringed upon? I never here the NRA or other second amendment advocates arguing that.

During the past eight years, we had a constant struggle to alter our constitutional rights in the name of security. Now our security is once again tested, but this argument is now the dreaded third rail.

But there is another key part to this amendment. It’s the very start of the text; “A well regulated Militia”. Some crazy out there, like Poplawski is not part of a well regulated militia. Under today’s terms such regulation would entail things such as a psychological profile. Poplawski would certainly fail that, and when we talk about any such conditions being a prerequisite of purchasing a fire arm, the NRA again starts a fight. They even fought against any waiting period. If the NRA had their say, we would be able to purchase any gun along with our beer and smokes at the gas station.

So perhaps it is time for those on our side of the argument to start using the tactics employed by the right over the past several years. What if President Obama did say he was pulling away all weapons? He can simply say it is part of our national security and his job under the constitution is to protect the people by any means. As matter of fact, that protection is to be from any enemy foreign or domestic.

In other words, President Obama can go out there and take away our guns, using the very same argument that George Bush used to tap our phone calls. How would the right respond to that? I think we already know the answer.