Here it is. I have another day to work on it, so any critiques would be very helpful! If this post is too long, please delete it. I'd put this on my website but I don't know how
Andy
Most people would agree that the United States has a gun violence problem. The U.S. gun crime rate is higher than both countries that have fewer guns than the U.S. and countries that have more guns per person than the U.S., so the number of guns in the U.S. doesn't seem to be a factor in this gun violence debate. Still, there are those who want to do something, so they push for gun-control legislation, hoping to reduce the number of guns available, and thus reduce gun violence. Many times even the media takes a pro-gun control slant by demonizing legislators who oppose gun control. This is a useless and dangerous attitude that will not help control gun violence, but rob common Americans of the tools needed to implement their right to self-defense.
The Second Amendment to the United States constitution very explicitly affirms the right of the people to keep and bear arms. A person does not have to belong to a well-regulated militia in order to have this right. The "militia" clause is just one, and not the only, reason for preserving the right to arms. The authors of the Bill of Rights were expressing a preference for a militia over a standing army. Even if today's well regulated militia were the National Guard, the Second Amendment still protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The authors of the bill of rights had just won a war against a tyrannical government, and they wanted to make sure that the new government that they were creating could not become anything like the one that they had fought against. Samuel Adams said "The Constitution shall never be construed…to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." They wanted an armed citizenry that would protect against another repressive government like the one that they had just gotten away from. It is a well-known fact that the three-branch system of government that the Constitution created was a system of "checks and balances." The Second Amendment is just another very important and intended check and balance. Even more importantly, the Bill of Rights does not "give" citizens rights; it merely affirms that these rights exist. The right to self-defense is not listed in the Bill of Rights, but most everyone (including the Courts) would agree that this is a primary human right. How can people defend themselves against armed criminals if they do not have the means to do so?
The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article in which the author believed that guns should be registered, and their owners licensed, much like cars and drivers. Comparing guns to cars is a popular tactic for gun control advocates, since cars are registered and drivers are licensed, and no one seems to mind this very much (or so says their logic). Cars and guns are far too different to be compared in this way. Advocates for gun registration and licensing point out that licensing drivers has reduced fatalities by keeping bad drivers off the road. They want to license gun owners in the same way, so that who is allowed to use a gun is controlled by the government, thereby keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally instable. This may seem like a good idea, but this system is already in place. It is already illegal for felons to posses or use firearms, and it is illegal to use a gun in the commission of a crime. Obviously, criminals do not obey these laws and will not abide by any further gun laws. As it has been said many times before, gun control only takes guns away from the law-abiding. The American people do not want more government intrusion, and many fear that gun registration is the first step towards confiscation and a dictatorship. Whether this fear is warranted or not is almost irrelevant, since a significant number of Americans think this way. Even former Vice President Hubert Humphrey said "…the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." Gun registration is currently being implemented in Canada, and most gun owners are not complying. In fact, a national organization has been formed that is urging Canadians to disobey the law and not register guns. If the same thing were to happen in the United States, the problem would probably be much worse than just non-compliance.
The proponents of gun control in the medical field are also in favor of making guns "safer", much like auto manufacturers are trying to make safer cars. They reason that making guns safer will reduce the death toll in the same way that seat belts and airbags save lives, but this is unreasonable to assume. A "safe gun" is almost an oxymoron. Guns are designed to kill, plain and simple. If a gun does not kill, it is not doing its job and is not a good product. Making guns harder to accidentally discharge is a good idea, but a "safe gun" will make a person just as dead as a cheaply made handgun will. Many attempts have been made to manufacture a "smart gun" that will only fire if the owner is holding the weapon. The problem with these guns is that they operate on batteries. When the batteries die or the electronics malfunction, the gun will not fire, which makes it an unacceptable choice for police use and for self-defense. Even this type of "smart gun" would not do much to decrease gun violence because anyone intent on committing a crime could easily use another type of gun or acquire a "smart gun" illegally and use it.
The targeting of certain kinds of guns and ammunition is a popular tactic by control advocates. "Assault rifles" and "Saturday night specials" are pointed to as "evil" guns that should be banned. For all practical purposes, these guns are identical to any other gun on the market. "Assault rifles" perform the same job as semi-automatic hunting rifles and are functionally the same. According to those who want to ban guns, making a rifle black instead of wood grained somehow makes it an "evil" gun that kills more women and children than it shoots targets and animals. Like "assault rifles," "Saturday night specials" fall into the same category. They are functionally identical to thousands of legal handguns, but were made illegal for political purposes. Because they were cheap to make and buy, that somehow made them bad. Never mind the fact that for many poor people, this may have been the only type of gun that they could afford for self-defense. By banning these guns, lawmakers took away the only form of protection that they count on, since the police are not required act as personal bodyguards.
The problem with supporters of tight gun control is that they do not trust common American citizens to own guns. They believe that giving someone a gun instantly makes that person a bloodthirsty killer who will be ready to blow the first person he or she sees into little tiny pieces. If this were indeed true, the crime rate would be many times higher than what it is now. There are enough guns in the United States for every adult to have one, yet less than one tenth of one percent of guns are ever used in the commission of a crime. If the government can trust common Americans to use highly sophisticated and automatic weaponry to fight its wars, why can it not trust these same citizens to use the same type of weapons for sport and self-defense in a legal manner? Webster's definition of racism states that it is an attitude of "inherent superiority." One could almost argue that a government that has strict gun control is racist towards its citizens. The government is superior and is allowed to use "bad guns", but the people, of whom the government is "of, by and for", are not allowed to use them for legal purposes because they are not smart enough to use them properly. The truth is that the government is more likely to kill an innocent bystander than an armed citizen is. Statistics report that 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person, while only 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. A ban on any type of weapon is an insult to law-abiding people.
The only way to completely eliminate gun death is to eliminate guns, and while that is what some propose, it is an unviable and impossible solution. With over 200 million firearms already in the hands of American citizens, it would be a hard and dangerous task to try to confiscate them. Americans love their guns, and any attempt to take them away will make the phrase "out of my cold dead hands" very true indeed. Responsible and law-abiding citizens use their firearms every day for target shooting, hunting, and self-defense. While some would like to label these people "gun-nuts" and try to portray them as fringe lunatics, the number of people who participate in the shootings sports is actually very large and increasing, especially among women. People talk about, read about and compare guns just like they do automobiles, football teams, and race cars, all of which are other purely American obsessions. To those in rural areas, guns are a part of life and something that is passed down from one generation to the next. To take away these guns is to take away family heirlooms, tradition, and in some cases, livelihood.
America may have a crime problem, but gun control is not the answer. In fact, studies have shown that after guns are banned or heavily restricted, crime goes up. Mafia informant Sammy "The Bull" Gravano said about gun control "It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins." This just goes to show that gun control only hurts law-abiding citizens, and does little to stem violence. Even police departments have started to realize this and have begun supporting right to carry laws in several states. These laws would allow citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-defense. While the right to self-defense may in itself be a reasonable argument for the ownership of guns, owning and using firearms is a right that is acknowledged in the United States Bill of Rights, and cannot be taken away by anyone, including the government.
