The main concept of the Second Amendment is not simply the right to bear arms. It is to sharpen our civilized awareness of the implications of self-defense — nature’s fight or flight mechanism for primal survival.

The real thrust of the Second Amendment reveals the right to self-defense, ostensibly by bearing arms, as the protector of our right to peace. The true hope of the Second Amendment is that peace will be the guarantor of self-defense.

When an officer of the law extols Second Amendment rights, even in the most seemingly innocent way, he creates a public image. When that image enables the NRA to nationally promote its own agenda, the result is ideological validation. The NRA message becomes clearer: everybody should invoke their Second Amendment rights; everybody should bear arms — for self-defense, of course. The NRA approved officer of the law who, perhaps unintentionally, promotes even the perception of pre-emptive self defense fosters a distorted image encouraging the public to do the same.

The Second Amendment right to bear arms is not a requirement to do so. Those who choose not to bear arms show their commitment to a free society — a peaceful society, where peace is the best armament choice for self defense — a society where civility trumps primal instinct.

Idealistic? Perhaps, but an officer of the law armed with this idealistic commitment would not present his community with mixed messages about their rights. Such an officer of the law would not aid and abet, even inadvertently, an NRA’s political self-serving. Such an officer would not permit the NRA to subtly but effectively turn him into a disturber of the very peace he is sworn to preserve.

The true purpose of the Second Amendment is civil peace, not the hidden potential invitation for subliminal aggression in the strongly implied pre-emptive, well-armed self-defense of the NRA’s view of the Second Amendment. Officers of the law are first and foremost peace officers.

Peace doesn’t kill people. People armed with peace don’t kill people. People armed with pseudo-peacemakers kill the spirit ofpeace-- sometimes to the letter of the law. The remaining question, both realistically and cynically is: how does a person armed with peace stand his/her ground?

This is not an attack on responsible gun owners. It is an attack on the distorted image which allows the Second Amendment to be a pseudo-justified assault on peace — the true ideal for which the amendment stands.