You've Come a Long Way, Baby.

• Author: Carp, Michael L.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Brian Doherty's piece on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms ("You've Come A Long Way, Baby," October) left me in a quandary. I cannot find the principle that makes owning a pistol a right yet makes it illegal to possess a hydrogen bomb. But if the "right to keep and bear arms" is truly a right, I can no sooner accept government control over the types and quantities of arms than I could accept government control over the types and quantifies of speech.

The practical answer is given by Ayn Rand: that as long we have a legitimately constituted government, we must cede our individual rights to these more powerful and dangerous weapons to the government on our behalf. This does not mean disarming the citizenry. It means allowing the government, within the moral context of the right to...