Letter: Gun rights are fundamental

Lately, several states have passed laws continuing to restrict the enumerated civil rights of gun owners. Most of this legislation and referenda are “feel good” responses to multiple public shootings that would not have prevented the criminal from wreaking their havoc, only impede ordinary citizens from fully exercising their rights. To quote from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts … fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no election.”