If I could go back in time to the late 18th century, I would do two things.
First, I would invest a lot of stock in the federal Bank of the United States. Second, I would stop the second amendment from being published.
James Madison's Bill of Rights includes the freedom of religion, speech, press, the right to be tried by jury, the right to assemble and petition government, no cruel and unusual punishments, arbitrary governments, seizure of private property and... the right of any adult to own a gun and use it?
I know what you're thinking: Among the otherwise practical list, where did Madison go wrong? But the truth is that things were different in those days. Imagine you lived in the rural countryside (90% of people did c. 1790's), miles and miles away from civilization, and along comes a burglar or an alien or satan, trying to rob you and kill your family. Americans couldn't just call 9-1-1 like we can today. The right to bear arms offered protection, and Democratic-Republicans saw it as a liberty.
The problem is, many conservatives want to hold onto that right, despite otherwise being able to defend themselves. A poll that I found online from Gallup.com states that 40% of Americans today have a gun at home that serve the purpose of hunting, criminal defense, and target shooting. This statistic is pretty much terrifying.
Over the years, gun restrictions have become stricter. In California, one must get background checks and carry a permit to own a gun. In addition, one must wait an enormous time period before operating the gun (10 days). On the other hand, if you look at Texas' gun laws, they don't require background checks, firearm registration, a state permit, or an owner license! Texas also enacts concealed carrying laws that allow certain firearms to legally be carried in public.
Not to offend any Texans, but this is really troubling to me. Many people take advantage of the fact that the right to bear arms was written in the Bill of Rights as an excuse to keep the amendment, but what they don't realize is that times have changed, and the number of deaths caused by the amendment is substantially larger than the amount of people protected by the amendment, back then and especially today.
The statistics are devastating: Everytownresearch.org shares that on an average day, 91 Americans are killed with guns, 7-10 of which are under 18 years old. Every year since the late 1990's, there have been 12,000 gun murders in the United States--several of these are mass murders that have made national news. When will this end?
Clearly, the second amendment had its time, but Americans need to let go of this "right"(that some have exploited, shown in the link below) and stop resisting change if they want to ensure the safety of fellow Americans should the gun end up in the wrong hands. After all, Americans who could afford it also had slaves back then, a major source of regret and a dark patch in American history. We all need to abandon our biases on this issue and look to the future instead of the past: guns just don't serve the modern American.
http://www.sonsoflibertytees.com/patriotblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/545751_10151396453980432_1560828751_n.jpg
I agree that preventative measures should be taken to stop guns from going into the hands of potential criminals, but do you think this is good enough or do you think that no Americans should own guns and that they should rely on the police for protection? In my opinion, I think that if the government were to forbid the possession of guns altogether, the law abiding citizens would comply while the criminals would not. One would think that this would make the citizens even more susceptible to murder than they are now. For anyone who wants to see the arguments for and against gun control, go to the following site:
ReplyDeletehttp://gun-control.procon.org/