English 1102 - 71
Professor Blank Blank
21 February 2013
Gun Control The second amendment states as follows: “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” (Becker 9). The founding fathers of the United States agreed that the civilians of this country should have the right to bear arms. They believed that the government should be afraid of the people, not the people afraid of the government. Today there are many political leaders and even our President that support restricting access of guns to American civilians (Epstein 16). Anti-Gun activists stand on the graves of those who died in the Sandy Hook Incident and the Colorado Movie shooting to gain support to restrict our second amendment. Though, the massacres were a terrible tragedy and measures should be implemented to stop them from happening again. They should not restrict law abiding citizens’ rights to bear arms. Everyone agrees that violence should be put to a minimum, but taking away rights of law abiding citizens is not the answer. Instead, lawmakers and the public need to take a step back and look at the gun control issue from all different perspectives. Violence is inevitable, no matter what culture or society you look into, everybody has some sort of violence that occurs. They key to minimalizing violence is to look at what is causing the issue in the first place. Anti-Gun activists will argue that banning assault weapons will make America a safer place. But is this the case, to find out one needs to take a deeper look inside the cold hard facts. As of 2009, the United States has a population of 307 million people. Based on production data from firearm manufacturers, there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 million are handguns. Based upon surveys, the following are estimates of private firearm