As the rhetoric heats up before the November elections, it is important to understand the distinction between God-given and man-made rights. Those who claim that constitutional rights are God-given are mistaken. God gave us the right to life, in all of its forms, and the right to care for it as well. That includes our environment, of which we are all stewards (and most are pretty lousy ones, at that). God gave us the right to choose how to think and act, but that does not equate to a right to do wrong. We are free to choose it, but we do not have a right to it.

Let me be clear: God did not write the Constitution. God wrote the Bible, which says we are to love one another and to love and serve God with all our hearts.

God did not design, make or give us a right to own guns, as Carl Ford claims on his website. We have a constitutional right to them, but the Second Amendment clearly states that they are for the purpose of having a “well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state” — which was written before the creation of our Armed Forces and police departments. Most gun proponents leave out that part of the amendment, whether by accident, because it is an inconvenient truth, or because they don’t even know those are the words that precede “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Say what you want about gun ownership, but please leave my God, who is all good and nothing but love, out of it.

— Margaret Stridick

Salisbury