The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights
By: Andrew • Essay • 1,006 Words • April 22, 2010 • 1,343 Views
The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights
The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights gives people the right to keep and bear arms. The ideas of setting strict laws that allow only hunting rifle use, and laws that allow more freedom has been argued over for many years. The best argument protecting the Second Amendment is that people have more security when possessing a gun. Although this is possibly true, gun control provides much more than comfort for the people. The second amendment has some benefits, but many dangers also come with having the right to own a gun. One of these dangers includes violence and death with our youth. If Gun Control laws are put into action, they will help prevent deaths of innocent people who carry guns. Gun Control will also help prevent terrorism against us or anyone else with the terrorists using guns from our own country. Gun control will also help prevent robberies and other treacherous hostage situations. In order to shelter the populace of the United States, we have an obligation as voting citizens to enact a strict Gun Control law ridding all weapons, except for hunting rifles, from public use.
According to the NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) the fifty-four and a half percent of people that threaten an attacker with a gun are more likely to get a gun drawn out in return. The other percentage of the victims who use self-protection or do not do anything have a much better chance of getting away without the attacker pulling out a gun (Gun). Under a strict Gun Control law, when a holdup happens, the attacker is less likely to have a gun, and even if the attacker did somehow obtain a firearm, the victim would not have one to use carelessly and get himself killed. Crimes with Gun Control will be much less violent for the people that obey the law, and most criminals will be deterred from even attempting a crime if they cannot buy a gun. Similarly, Gun Control will help prevent terrorism of this country.
Terrorism, now a big issue for the United States, can be prevented in many cases if Gun Control laws are put into affect. Many terrorists use easily concealed guns that come from the United States, getting the guns from either exportation or in the country. America cannot suffer as a victim of many more terrorist attacks, and Gun Control laws will help filter out terrorist attacks. Research done by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) shows that in over 4,000 gun shows a year over 26,000 firearms get into the illegal market (Brady). Many attacks against our country and other countries can be traced back to United States made firearms. Evidence of multiple handgun trades between the Irish Republican and three sources in the United States also shows how easily attainable firearms are for terrorist organizations (Brady). However, Gun Rights activists still do not want Gun Control.
Gun rights activists argue that the Second Amendment gives people the protection of carrying a gun. The argument has a very strong point, but if one pauses to view the Gun Control side of the argument, one will clearly see gun control gives much more protection to the future victims of gun attacks. If guns are strictly controlled in the first place, then there will be no reason for fear, because it is almost impossible to conceal a rifle in one’s clothing. When looking at the State-by-State Gun Control Laws one would see that in states where gun control laws are enabled firearm death goes down drastically (CNN). For example, Wisconsin, with sparse gun control laws, in the beginning of the year 2000 had four hundred thirty-two firearm deaths per 100,000 people (CNN). In comparison, New Jersey, with a fair amount of gun control laws, had only three hundred forty-one deaths per 100,000 people (CNN). Ninety-one deaths may not seem like a huge difference, but if each state has exactly 1,000,000 people, then the firearm