Terrance Harding's letter (Forum, April 23) extolling the virtues of military assault rifles for home defense and rabbit hunting contains the same tired (and inaccurate) NRA hogwash that is repeated in the Forum at least twice a week: namely, that the Second Amendment guarantees unrestricted private ownership of guns.
The inaccuracy of the argument does not diminish with the telling. The fact is that no federal court in at least the past 50 years has struck down a gun control statute or ordinance on Second Amendment grounds. On the contrary, dozens of reported decisions have upheld such regulations.Even legal scholars who believe that the courts have misinterpreted the Second Amendment concede that the right to bear arms is not an absolute one and is subject to a government's proper exercise of the police power. (Indeed, no constitutional right is absolute - not even freedom of speech.)
It is probably useless to try to convince Harding that his interpretation of the Constitution is wrong. He dismisses arguments that assault rifles are not protected by the Second Amendment as the rantings of the "liberal elite." Perhaps Harding will at least agree that under our system of government it is the courts who are charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution.
The courts have consistently held that gun control statutes and ordinances do not violate the Second Amendment. Plausible arguments against gun control have occasionally appeared in the Forum. But the Second Amendment argument is not one of them.
Steven H. Gunn
Salt Lake City