So far as the writer of this opinion is concerned, he is decidedly of the opinion that the possession of a pistol or revolver about the person, either by a minor or an adult, concealed or open, is a menace to individual safety and to law and order, and he concurs strongly in the view of those able jurists who construe the constitutional provision above quoted as not applicable to the modern pistol or revolver. The framers of the federal Constitution and of the state Constitution did not have this weapon in contemplation as one of the constitutional rights of the citizen. This constitutional provision, rationally construed, applies only to such "arms" as could be used by the army or the militia in the preservation of public order. It is incredible that any lawmaking body, cognizant of the evils of having about the person a pistol or revolver, would have intended to preserve such evil by a constitutional provision. The ordinary pistol or revolver, usually carried in the hip pocket, is not a weapon of defense. It is a weapon of offense. The pistol is, in the opinion of the writer, the most offensive weapon ever devised by the ingenuity of man for the destruction of life and the peace of society. The people in their sovereign capacity have the right to prohibit absolutely this evil, and the individual member of society cannot claim it as one of the inalienable constitutional privileges of personal liberty. In a free country, no man has any personal right that is not subservient to the public weal. "Salus populi suprema lex" is a rule of unlimited application, and qualifies every personal right of the citizen.
