A Security Threat, Not Protection

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.