Jonathan Lloyd, in his letter ("Definition doesn't include 'treason,'" Jan. 15), implies there can be no contemporary significance for the Second Amendment other than self-defense.
Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, would disagree. He listed 27 usurpations perpetrated by King George III to justify force and the subsequent secession of the Colonies. What preceded Mr. Jefferson's list of reasons for why the Colonies wished to declare their independence was a timeless statement, as important now as it was then. It provides the bedrock principles for what makes the United States a "free society."
Most agree that our inalienable rights are to be secured by government, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government..."
Those who reduce this debate to self-defense confuse tyranny and treason and, in doing so, ignore the reality of madmen and corrupt governments that have always sought to disarm any form of opposition. It is common knowledge the best and most effectual means to politically enslave a society is to disarm them.
The Founders believed the Second Amendment was not meant to apply only to those weapons that pose no threat to government. What the Founders enshrined was a citizen's ability to retain the rights and means to always offer resistance to governmental oppression. An armed society is not about overthrowing the government, it's about preventing the government from overthrowing our liberty.
JOHN SOKOLEWICZ
Malta