The Second Amendment
Essay Preview: The Second Amendment
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If the government takes peoples guns what is next? The individuals that are on the anti-gun control side think that one should be able to posses and own any firearm and think that gun ownership is a Constitutional Right protected by the Second Amendment. They also think that gun laws only restrict the law abiding citizens. People on the pro-gun control side believe that guns are the backbone to our crime problem. They also believe that gun laws help keep guns of the street and deter crime. Strengthening gun laws will only hurt the people that are legally buying guns and do not stop the sales of illegal ones.
The Second Amendment reads,” 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.”(Hatch, pg 6) The second amendment should help secure right of the people to have a gun in their home.
The first violation on the Second Amendment was when President Clinton signed Brady Bill I. The law required that there has to be a five day waiting period on all hand gun purchases and also banned semi-automatic rifles and other military type weapons. The five day waiting period is intended to stop felons from buying guns. But, waiting periods do not stop felons from getting guns. It is illegal for a felon to possess any firearm, so what is the point. Most of the criminals do not get their guns from stores, most get them by theft or on the black market, which is a plus for them because its not traceable. “If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, and the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 – establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control crime.” (Hatch, pg 6).
The problem with the new bills is that it does nothing to deter crime. It only affects the law abiding citizens. Criminals will not register their guns because usually they are stolen. The bills really just keep the honest people honest. If they really want to deter crime they should allow people the right to conceal and carry there own firearm. There have been studies that