Ten Amendments: The Right To Keep And Bear Arms

The United States Constitution was created on September 17, 1787 as the supreme law of the land. This document outlines the ten amendments which guarantee certain rights that American citizens will always have. One of these freedoms and possibly the most important is the right to keep and bear arms. As written in the Constitution, “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” (U.S. Constitution). Whatever the purpose these guns are meant to serve it is clear that the right to own them cannot be impaired. George Washington once said,
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty, teeth and
keystone under independence… From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable… the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good. (Wang, Scott).
This shows that the founding fathers believed guns were one of the most important things an American could have. It did not matter if it was for self protection, protection of one’s country, or just to have fun with. Guns are a fundamental part of society and can be seen when America was just getting started. Gandhi wrote in his autobiography, “Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest,” (Raymond, Eric S.). Despite the Constitution and what has happened in nations deprived of their guns, there are some people that would still have these weapons severely controlled or eliminated altogether. They believe that by making guns illegal it will protect American lives. These beliefs usually originate when someone experiences a traumatic event in their life that was caused by a gun. They insist that guns are a problem and that the only solution is to eliminate them. They make guns seem like a weapon of mass destruction, that unless heavily restricted will spiral out of control until everyone is dead. One of their most flawed claims is that guns kill people. If that were a true statement, then a loaded gun just laying on the ground would shoot someone as they walked by. The act of stringently controlling firearms is flawed due to the fact that it is both unconstitutional and ineffective.
Gun control enthusiasts believe that gun ownership by individuals is not protected by the constitution.
In Wilson vs. Arkansas the decision was that, “To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege” (Wang, Scott). This decision by the Arkansas Court system shows that any law that restrict firearms is unconstitutional. Another decision by the Texas court system concludes the same thing,
The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and `is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power. (Wang,
Scott) Activists also claim that the second amendment was created solely for the purpose of having a militia. Even within this claim they are contradicting themselves. Individuals are required to have firearms in order to be able to have a militia. If in fact the only reason the amendment was enacted was for a militia then the men who created the Bill of Rights and The Constitution would have been talking about the militia and not the basic right of American citizens to have guns. Samuel Adams once said, “The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms” (Schlafly, Phyllis). This quote from Adams is quite clear in stating that what gun control activists are doing is unconstitutional. James madison wrote in his federalist papers, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms” (Raymond, Eric S.). It is obvious that Madison was talking about the right of the individual to own a firearm and in this case to keep the government from becoming tyrannous. Thomas Jefferson in a note to his nephew wrote, “As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion to your walks” (Raymond, Eric S.). Thomas Jefferson, yet another creator of the Constitution, tells his nephew that a gun can teach him much more than anything else. He is not telling him that he should try to remove guns from America or have a bunch of guns stored somewhere in the town in which he lives in case of an emergency. George Mason once said, “To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them” (Schlafly, Phyllis). What Mason says here is exactly what gun control activists are trying to do. Though they may be trying to remove guns from the hands of criminals, guns are actually being removed from the hands of law abiding citizens trying to protect themselves. What all of these men have said or wrote clearly show that the removal of guns from the hands of the people is unconstitutional.
Those for gun control that realize it is unconstitutional will claim that the amendment is outdated and no longer needed. The truth is that it will never not be needed especially with as many enemies as the United States has. If the United States was disarmed a country like China would be able to easily walk onto our soil and take over. Gun control activists response to this is that our military could handle an invasion from a foreign nation but the truth is that China has the largest military in the world and could easily destroy ours if they wanted to. Our only defense against a nation such as China is our people being armed for their defense. Without the people being armed how does anyone expect the government to respect us. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in his book The Prince,
You are bound to meet misfortune if you are unarmed because, among other reasons, people despise you....There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed. In the latter case, there will be suspicion on the one hand and contempt on the other, making cooperation impossible. (Wang, Scott)
It goes without saying that as soon as we are unarmed the government will no longer care what we think. Thomas Jefferson once said, “The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government” (Wang, Scott). Jefferson also says, “And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms…. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants” (Wang, Scott). Activists like to say that as Americans we don’t need to worry about our government becoming tyrannical. This claim of theirs is unwarranted with absolutely no guarantee that the government will not become tyrannical. For all we know as soon as gun legislation is passed someone in Washington might just get an idea. Patrick Henry posed a great question when he said, “Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?... If our defense be the real object of having those arms in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” (Wang, Scott). To answer this question there no one to be more trusted with arms than the citizens of the U.S.
One of the reasons for gun control is to reduce gun related deaths among young people. Though removing guns would definitely reduce deaths among the children of America there is a much better solution that does not involve infringing upon the rights of American citizens. The solution is to teach these children at a young age how to properly handle, use, and maintain these firearms. In agreeance with this thought is Richard Henry Lee who once said, “To preserve liberty, it essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them” (Schlafly, Phyllis). This can be easily thought through logically. During the hunters safety course, required to be taken by anyone wanting to use a firearm for hunting purposes, it is highly stressed that these children, usually between the ages of twelve and eighteen, know how to properly use a firearm. It has been shown that those who take and pass this course are less likely to commit a violent crime later in life.
A big problem with gun control is the effect it will have on the hunting industry. If guns are outlawed this industry will take a huge hit. The hunting industry employs approximately 12 million Americans and helps support a 9 billion dollar industry (Marshall, Bob). Hunters spend around 34 billion dollars on equipment and hunting trips to generate this 9 billion dollars in revenue and the number of hunters is increasing with an additional 2.6 million from 2006-2011. Monetarily this would be a massive loss (Marshall, Bob).
There is also the problem of all of the animals that would no longer be controlled through hunting. During the 2012-2013 hunting season in North Carolina a total of approximately 180,000 deer, 250,000 squirrels, 2,450 bear, 3,700 bobcats, 14,000 canadian geese, 21,000 coyotes, 300,000 doves, 110,000 ducks, 3,750 foxes, and 120,000 rabbits were harvested using firearms (Reports). Though certain animals would be controlled naturally, animals such as coyotes would not be as they are at the top of the food chain. Without man to control the population of these coyotes their numbers would steadily grow until they have ate all of their prey and then they will begin to start dying of starvation with nothing to eat. That is but one possibility. Another thing that could happen is the herbivorous animals such as deer and rabbits could start to become an issue with the destruction of foliage. The possibilities of something bad happening without man to control these animals are numerous and unimaginable and this can not be allowed to happen.
Activists claim that by making it very hard hard to get guns legally crime rates would drop.
This however is not so due to the fact most people that commit violent crimes do not use a gun that they obtained legally. Of the guns used in violent crimes 39.6% were obtained from a friend or relative, 39.2 % from the street or an illegal source, 0.7% at a gun show, 1.0% from a flea market, and 3.8 % from a pawn shop (Olmstead, J. S.). All of these circumstances do not require the criminal to go through a background check which would most likely not allow them to obtain the weapon. With these numbers it only leaves 8.3% of criminals obtaining their guns legally (Olmstead, J. S.). This shows that by making it harder to obtain weapons it only hurts the law abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves. Another statistic that shows allowing people to have a gun is not bad can be seen in Lott’s book. He reports that only 0.015% of permits for concealed carry weapons have been revoked and of those very few were due to a crime committed with the licensed weapon that resulted in a fatality (Lott
12).
One of the most interesting things about how activists gain support is that they only show the gun related crime rates in the U.S. It is true that the U.S. has one of the highest gun related crime rates throughout the world but it does not have the highest crime rate in general. The thing about this avenue is that if someone dies it doesn’t matter how it only matters how many. Activists are trying to paint a picture that death by gun is the worst thing that can possibly happen to someone. There are in actuality much worse ways of get killed. For example getting stabbed with a spoon would be immensely painful and slow. So the question still stands is murder by gun really the worst thing or is it murder in general that we as a country need to focus on? This question is quite simple to answer, and that is answer is we need to work on stopping crime in general not just gun related crime. Gun control is one of the most flawed plans any human has ever thought of. Its overarching goal is to reduce crime yet it has not only failed in this aspect but actually has resulted in an increase in crime rates in almost every scenario. The cases that it actually worked were only because the rights that Americans have the people in these situations did not. Suicide rates are unaffected by gun control laws though activists believed they would be. There is a huge economic impact that results when guns can no longer be sold. To put everything into perspective it is easiest to take a look into the past. The prohibition is a great example of what would happen if guns were outlawed in the United States. Take away the guns and black markets will show up so people can still get them. Knowledge on how to make these weapons is already out there so activists’ hopes that by making them illegal will end their use is not going to happen. Gun control is a highly flawed and extremely ineffective solution to crime, suicide and accidental killings. There are much better solutions to these problems out there somewhere in society we just need to look for them.