More Gun Laws example essay topic

Whenever some terrible act of violence occurs such as the horrible Columbine Shooting, people start looking for answers and pointing fingers. They want to put the blame on something saying, "It was the parents fault", or, "It is television and the Internet's fault", but the blame is most often put on an inanimate object that does only what the person operating it tells it to do. In the next few minutes one should realize that it is not the gun's fault and more gun control laws are not the answer. Gun control violates rights given to us by the Second Amendment, guns have proven to be extremely effective in deterring crimes and protecting private property, gun control does not work in controlling violence, and gun control goes against everything the founders of this country stood for. Gun control violates the rights that the founders of this country shed their blood for.

Our constitution is the rights that the framers of this country put together because they felt it to be necessary for a strong nation. In it the Second Amendment states, "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. One would think that the men who wrote the Constitution knew and understood the importance of allowing a free people to have the right to keep and bear arms. Some would say that today's well-regulated militia was the National Guard, but even if that was true the Second Amendment still protects individuals rights to keep and bear arms.

As Thomas Jefferson so emphatically put it, "No free man should ever be disbarred the use of arms". (Quotations 1) Thomas Jefferson, being a huge supporter of the right to bear arms, also said, "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it". Jefferson also said, "The strongest reason for the People to retain the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government". He definitely realized, as did the other writers of the constitution, the importance of letting a free people have the right to Bear Arms. It has been said that guns just cause violence and are never a benefit to society, nothing could be so far from the truth. Statistics have shown time and time again that guns are used hundreds of thousands of times a year in the defense of one's self, property, and family.

In fact, according to Dr. Keck, a criminologist at Florida State University, 75% of all uses of guns in crime related incidents are defensive uses by would be crime victims. (Lee 2) That is a huge percentage. That turns out to be more than 2 million times a year that citizen's use lawfully owned firearms to defend themselves and their families. Studies have even been done by anti-gun groups that prove the same fact. One anti-gun survey said that handguns were used in defending more than 645,000 crimes per year. (Kates 12) All of this and more disprove the notion that guns are one of society's evils and need to be rid of completely. felons on the street.

The FBI has collected data that shows that armed citizens lawfully kill more violent felons per year than do the police. (Kates 1) When one says they want more gun control they do not fully realize what they are saying. Gun control will not be a benefit to society but rather a downfall. Past and present citizens with guns have always had a positive affect in society. In fact, going back a hundred years to the Wild West if one would look into it, contrary to what books and movies of the old west portray, violence was far less prevalent than it is today. Contrary to myths, bank and stagecoach robberies were few.

Would be criminals known with certainty that if they would try to rob a bank the tellers and managers would have firearms and would be able and willing to protect themselves. (Lee 6) The young, the old, and the female -- -those most vulnerable -- were far safer in the most wild and woolly frontier towns than they are in any American city today. People had arms, knew how to use them, and were willing to fight with deadly force to protect their persons and property. (Lee 6) A good example of how citizens with lawfully owned guns have been effective in deterring violence recently is Florida. Since Florida enacted their concealed carry law their murder rate has dropped by 29%. Nationwide during this same time the murder rate has risen 11%.

One could then say that when criminals know that when they go to commit a crime they could very likely run into a citizen with a lawful firearm they are not so quick to commit the crimes. Gun control laws are one of the best things criminals could hope for because gun laws don't have any affect on criminals. Criminals are going to get and use guns illegally whether they are available to law-abiding citizens or not. The more gun control rules and regulations there are, the happier the criminals will be, for they know the more gun laws there are the less chance they have of having a crime victim defend themselves with a lawfully-owned firearm.

One just has to stop and think to realize how true this is. No matter how many weapons the government tries to take away they are still going to be on the street. Thomas Jefferson said", Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man". (Howerter 2) If anti-gun activists have their way, the government will be able to confiscate the weapons of law abiding citizens, but not of people most likely to go on a shooting spree. (Smith 2) What good is taking away guns from innocent people and leaving them to criminals?

34% of felons themselves said, that in contemplating crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they might get shot by a would be victim, and 57% agreed that", most criminals are worried about meeting an armed victim than they are by running into police. 34% of convicts interviewed also said that they had been, "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim", and about two thirds had at least one acquaintance that had the experience. (Kates 12) So of course criminals are going to be the ones wanting gun laws. They don't obey them, only law-abiding citizens do.

Gun control laws will not stop violence. One does not have to look very far to see how true this is. It has been proven over and over abroad and here in our borders that more laws do not mean less violence. In such countries as Taiwan and South Africa, the two nations that most severely restrict gun ownership (violators are subject to the death penalty), the murder rates are far higher than in the United States.

Just the opposite, in countries such as Switzerland, Israel, and New Zealand where guns are much more available than they are here in the US crime and homicides are virtually nonexistent (Lee 3). This disproves the theory that guns cause violence. A good example is Israel. Almost every household has weapons of some sort.

It is very common for Israeli households to have more than one fully automatic weapon, and also to have such things as missile launchers or even bigger weapons. There they realize that allowing their citizens to have guns of any kind is a huge asset to the benefit of their country. History has proven that every nation, which has disarmed its citizenry, has ended up with a dictator and a police state with countless and horrible atrocities. (Howerter 1) One of the most warped and wicked minds of all time, Adolph Hitler, was a huge advocate of gun control. Hitler said, "History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own downfall". (Gun Control Hall of Fame 4) What he basically meant is that if citizens are allowed to own guns with out government restrictions than it is virtually impossible for dictators like himself to get into power.

Hitler also said, "This year will go down in History, for the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration, our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future". Is that what our country wants? Hitler's idea of safe was rounding up countless millions of innocent people and slaughtering them just because of their religion and race. A civilized nation he called it, a more efficient police. The Gestapo was Hitler's idea of an efficient police. He knew that after he had full registration of guns he could get by with the horrible atrocities that he got by with and not have to worry about any retaliation from his governed people because they had no way to go against him.

Mahatma Gandhi, the peaceful protester from India who led his country to independence from Great Britain, said, "Among the many misdeeds of the British Rule in India, History will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest". (Howerter 1) Great Britain realized that when they took away guns from India they didn't have to worry about India trying to fight for the independence they deserved. When the citizens of a free nation own guns, it is almost impossible for the government to take over and become a dictatorship or socialist. One would say that what has happened in the past does not apply to today, or what has happened in other countries that taken guns away from their people won't happen in America. They need to realize how true it is that we either learn from History or History will repeat itself. Even in our own country states and cities that have tried to enact strict gun laws have found them to be ineffective.

The places in the United States where gun control laws are toughest tend to be the places where the most crimes are committed with illegal weapons. (Lee 6) Out of the 15 states that have the highest homicide rates, 10 have very restrictive gun laws. (Lee 6) New York, for example, which has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation has 20 percent of the nations total of armed robberies. New York is big but not that big.

Gun control does not work. Another example, Washington D.C., since guns were banned in 1976 the murder rate has risen 200 percent. (Howerter 2) How much proof does one need to know that gun laws do not effect criminals? Criminals don't care what the law says. More gun laws will not reduce crime. The more gun laws there are the more gun-related crimes there will be.

That is a fact. One should realize after reading this paper that first of all gun control violates rights guaranteed us by the Second Amendment, guns prevent crime a whole lot more than they cause crime, gun control has proven ineffective in stopping crime here in our country and abroad, past and present, and gun control goes against everything the forefathers of this country stood for. George Washington put it like this, "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance: they are the people's liberty teeth". (Howerter 3) One should stop and think the next time they go to the ballot box before they start making the little X's just who are the people they are voting for. Are they going to try to enact more rules and regulations on guns as a sort of scape goat for problems in society, or are they going to uphold the constitution and go after the real causes of the violence that we face in our society today. As one man put it so well, "We have four boxes used to guarantee our liberty, The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

(Howerter 3) Another man who was vital in founding this country, Benjamin Franklin, put it this way, "They that can give essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". (Quotes from the Founding Fathers and their Contemporaries 2)

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