Failure of Gun Control Laws
Failure of Gun Control LawsAmericans are faced with an ever-growing problem of violence.
Our streets have become a battleground where the elderly are
beaten for their social security checks, where terrified women are
viciously attacked and raped, where teen-age gangsters
shoot it out for a patch of turf to sell their illegal drugs, and
where innocent children are caught daily in the crossfire of drive-by
shootings. We cannot ignore the damage that these criminals are doing
to our society, and we must take actions to stop these
horrors. However, the effort by some misguided individuals to
eliminate the legal ownership of firearms does not address the
real problem at hand, and simply disarms the innocent law-abiding
citizens who are most in need of a form of self-defense.
To fully understand the reasons behind the gun control
efforts, we must look at the history of our country, and the role
firearms have played in it. The second amendment to the Constitution
of the United States makes firearm ownership legal in this country.
There were good reasons for this freedom, reasons which persist today.
Firearms in the new world were used initially for hunting, and
occasionally for self-defense. However, when the colonists felt that
the burden of British oppression was too much for them to bear, they
picked up their personal firearms and went to war. Standing against
the British armies, these rebels found themselves opposed by the
greatest military force in the world at that time. The 18th century
witnessed the height of the British Empire, but the rough band of
colonial freedom fighters discovered the power of the Minuteman, the
average American gun owner. These Minutemen, so named because they
would pick up their personal guns and jump to the defense of their
country on a minute's notice, served a major part in winning the
American Revolution. The founding fathers of this country understood
that an armed populace was instrumental in fighting off oppression,
and they made the right to keep and bear arms a constitutionally
guaranteed right.
Over the years, some of the reasons for owning firearms have
changed. As our country grew into a strong nation, we expanded
westward, exploring the wilderness, and building new towns on the
frontier. Typically, these new towns were far away from the centers of
civilization, and the only law they had was dispensed by townsfolk
through the barrel of a gun. Crime existed, but could be minimized
when the townspeople fought back against the criminals. Eventually,
these organized townspeople developed police forces as their towns
grew in size. Fewer people carried their firearms on the street, but
the firearms were always there, ready to be used in self-defense.
It was after the Civil War that the first gun-control
advocates came into existence. These were southern leaders who were
afraid that the newly freed black slaves would assert their newfound
political rights, and...
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