Beginning with the Nixon administration, I believe our government has been preparing for an armed revolution by our citizens. They are ready with the latest in weapons and surveillance. I don't care how many military weapons you have, you won't take back our government by force. Any move by our citizens to enforce our Second Amendment right will result in a police state. We would have to learn to live with ID cards, a cop on every corner, restrictive voting laws, heavy surveillance, confiscation of all weapons and industrial-sized prisons. The government has an unlimited supply of weapons, no respect of world opinion, and Homeland Security for crowd control. Our Second Amendment rights don't exist, haven't for years.

The only answer is non-violent resistance. We proved it would work during the anti-war, equal rights movement in the '60s and '70s. Gandhi taught our generation that the only way to fight an armed power is through non-violence. I believe the more guns we remove from our society, the safer we will be as a society. I propose we ban all guns, except for law enforcement and military. In a society without an armed population, gun ownership would be demonized and criminals who use guns would be charged with attempted murder. Our kids would be safer, and we wouldn't have armed guards in all our schools, malls, parks, swimming pools and homes.

Bob Reeves

Bellingham