Piers Morgan is a Brit with lots of opinions on lots of issues.

Let’s take guns, for example.

Morgan is appalled at the gun violence that keeps erupting in this country and is unafraid to say so. He doesn’t understand Americans’ love affair with guns and doesn’t quite grasp fully, I reckon, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to own firearms to American citizens. He’s been ranting and raving about gun violence lately on his cable news TV talk show.

In fact, he has ranted and raved so much that some proud Americans want him deported, shipped out, sent packing back to Britain. They’ve signed petitions demanding the government do what they wish.

These folks are misguided.

The Second Amendment follows the First Amendment, which says this: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The beef with Morgan is that he isn’t one of us and that he should keep his trap shut when talking about the Constitution. But having just typed the First Amendment word for word, I cannot find a single reference to freedom of speech being reserved for Americans only.

A friend and former colleague of mine posted this message recently on a social media outlet as it regards this loony notion of deporting Piers Morgan:

“Democracy is founded on Milton’s ‘marketplace of ideas.’ We weigh as many viewpoints and ideas as we have access to, continually testing our own views — and perhaps modifying them based on the new information. The viewpoints of people whose backgrounds are not similar to our own can be the most effective in broadening our spectrum.”

I think I’ll let her view stand on its own. I can’t improve on it, other than to say, let the man speak and add his perspective to an important national debate.