The usual gun advocate apologia

Donald Kilmer's cri de coeur, "Second Amendment is not a second-class right," (Oct. 17, 2017) is the usual apologia of the gun advocates.

The article contains the rather telling misrepresentation that "the Second Amendment, first ratified in 1791, lay dormant against the federal government's infringement, until 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570." (Emphasis added.)

By "dormant," does Mr. Kilmer mean something similar to Dr. Frankenstein's monster, or Lazarus?

In fact, a decision of the US Supreme Court five years later, County of Shelby, Alabama v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), clearly demonstrated that the Second Amendment was obsolete, as was the Third Amendment and probably the 10th Amendment months, if not years, after their ratification. In County of Shelby, the chief justice of the United States wrote that legislation must address itself to current conditions.

The "current conditions," when the Second Amendment was ratified, in 1791, was that the 13 newly united states were fearful of the power of the central (federal) government and Native Americans -- not third parties such as Great Britain or France.

Certainly, no later than 1803, when President Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana territory from the French did the Second Amendment sink into obsolescence. In 2008 when Heller was decided, it was a purely political decision, the end justifying the means.