July
7, 2014
A
Security Threat, Not Protection
Gun
Control. To many people, these two words bring sighs of relief and
feelings of security. To others, they mean encroachment on Americans'
rights. Before determining how you should feel about it, let's define
gun control.
Theoretically,
gun control is implemented by laws that prohibit certain guns or
ammunition. A gun control law can also ban concealed carry permits,
or simply the right to own a gun. In other words, gun control
increases the difficulty of buying or owning a gun.
Firearms
come in all shapes and sizes, with many different features and
accessories. Whether prohibitory gun laws focus on restrictions on
the characteristics of a gun or just gun rights, the end result
always complicates the process of buying a gun. Despite the ultimate
goal of these laws, to take guns from criminals, who don't even
obtain guns legally, the laws are not only useless but also harmful
to law-abiding citizens who only want to protect their property ("10
Arguments Against Gun Control"). Thus implications hinder the
goal: protection of law-abiding citizens.
You
have likely heard of the saying, “You don't bring a knife to a
gunfight.” If you are assaulted by a criminal who is armed,
defending yourself would be extremely difficult unless you are also
armed. Gun control laws are preventing citizens from defending
themselves in the face of crime.
In
many cases, a villain will not assault someone if he suspects that
person may be concealing a firearm, and although nobody should assume
that an armed populous prevents all crimes and casualties, it does
decrease them greatly. In fact, "the United States is #1 in the
world in gun ownership, and yet it is only 28th in the world in gun
murders per 100,000 people, and, almost every mass shooting that has
occurred in the United States since 1950 has taken place in a state
with strict gun control laws" (Snyder). What if the shooter at
Sandy Hook Elementary School had known that one of the teachers
carried a gun? Perhaps, because of the presence of an armed teacher
those children would not have been mass-murdered. And what of the
shooter in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater? If one of the
spectators had had a gun, the shooter would have been stopped sooner.
Unfortunately, though, the movie theater was a gun-free zone. In any
case, when a crime is committed, if an armed citizen is present, the
crime itself may actually be stopped, or the shooter disarmed sooner
if a victim has a gun.
Advocates
of gun control often don't see the unintended consequences in their
logic. Suppose a national law states that no one can own a gun.
Period. This idea omits all crimes committed with weapons other than
guns. It also overlooks crimes committed by law-abiding citizens who
buy their firearm legally and then take illegal action. It’s
impossible, if not at least difficult, to determine if a person who
initially purchases a gun as a law-abiding citizen will use his or
her legally acquired firearm to commit a crime. Therefore, gun
control actually would not rid the nation of crime or murder.
The
second amendment to the Constitution clearly states that, “A
well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed.” This is a matter of interpretation, but militia or no
militia, the most basic interpretation of that amendment is that all
private citizens have the “right to bear arms.” Notice that it
does not read: The right to keep and
bear arms in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed.
If the founding fathers had intended that interpretation, they surely
would have written it that way ("Gun Control: Five Reasons Why
It Won't Work").
The
false logic behind gun control is that because guns are limited,
there will be fewer guns, and less crimes. That is often not the
case. However, because of anti-gun laws, Americans would be stripped
of their constitutional rights and of the strongest defense against
violent crime, while the criminals obviously will always have
weapons. This creates a defenseless society. Anyone can see through
the well-meant but faulty logic of gun control advocates, realizing
that banning weapons used in crime does not prevent crime. It disarms
victims.
By Liz Ann Berg
Edited
by Cheyanne Durham
and
Otis Slugsworth
Works
Cited
"10
Arguments Against Gun Control - Listverse." Listverse.
N.p., 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 03 July 2014.
"Gun
Control: Five Reasons Why It Won’t Work." The Clause.
N.p., 1 Feb. 2013. Web. 06 July 2014.
Snyder,
Michael. "18 Little-Known Gun Facts That Prove That Guns Make Us
Safer." Infowars. N.p., 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 04 July 2014.
