Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Gun Control

        If guns kill people then pencils misspell words and forks make people fat.  There have been years of debate spent on the topic of gun control.  Some say it will make our country safer if no one can legally own a fire arm, some say the exact opposite.  It's in our constitution that the citizens of our country may own a legally licensed fire arm if they are 18 or older and a sidearm if they are 21 or over.  Many people have tried and none have succeeded in ridding the nation of firearms and in my eyes no one ever will.

            A gun has never got up and shot somebody so it is impossible to say that guns kill people only people kill people.  Guns are not the problem in crime and death it is the person holding the gun and that is why there are so many background checks and classes required to legally own or operate a gun.  The rate of criminals that have guns has gone down severely because of the new requirements such as; you have to have hunters education to buy a gun and there are now better background checks that make it extremely hard to let a convicted felon to even own a firearm.

            It is our constitutional right to own a firearm as stated in the second amendment, the right to bear arms.  The amendment was originally put  in place as part of the minuteman philosophy that there could be an army ready in a minute to drive off the British.   Some people say that that is no longer needed to support our nation and that there will never be an invasion of our country, they might be right. The only problem is if they are wrong and we have no further defense than our army.  If it were not for our minuteman army in the revolutionary war we may not even live in the country we do today.

            The closest anyone has ever come to removing the firearms from the U.S. was President Clinton and he barely did anything.  During President Clinton's term he made it so a person could only have a maximum of 10 rounds of ammunition in his or her firearm.  This was the closest any person has ever come including President Obama.  Even though Clinton was able to set a limit on how man rounds of ammo could be put into a gun at one time the law was rejected as soon as his term was over.

            The most reoccurring statement made for gun control is to completely remove the firearm from the U.S.  They believe that just because it is unlawful to own a firearm means there will no longer be any guns in the U.S., they are right all law abiding citizen will no longer have a firearm.  The problem is that criminals or people that don't follow the laws already will still be able to obtain and have guns because they don't care what is right or wrong. The only difference that removing firearms from law abiding citizens will make is that they will now be defenseless against criminals that do have firearms.

            So whether it's protecting our constitutional rights, our country, or ourselves in general fire arms are goods things if used by good people.  The good people who own firearms believe in our government and in our constitutional rights, but the few people who chose to abuse their rights give the good people a bad name. That bad name then makes the country look bad and gives the people without proper knowledge of our rights the idea that all people who own guns are bad.

                                                                                                    -Almostsk8r1

2 comments:

The Capitalist said...

The Bill of Rights does give citizens the right to bear arms. This is a fact. It is also a fact that very few people propose banning all guns. No one believes that guns are what is killing people, either. However, there is no reason that someone should be able to purchase assault weapons for "personal use." There isn't a purpose to own these weapons (unless you are planning on shooting people.) The term "arms" may be interpreted in other ways, too. The Bill of Rights never said "firearms." Should a rocket launcher be legal? It can be used for self defense.

My point is that guns need to be regulated for the safety of the American people, but shouldn't be banned entirely. It is naive to say "guns don't kill people." People, holding guns, pull triggers which fire bullets into people. That kills them.

Mr. Tomoskowitz said...

First of all, that is the one of the best opening statements I have ever seen and I applaud you for it. Secondly, I agree that gun control is not needed in the United States. The Second Amendment states that we have the right to have arms of any kind and that should not be restricted. I would also have to say that the type of firearm should not be restricted either because high powered weapons and assult rifles can be used for collectors, firing ranges, and marksman competitions. Not killing people.