Right To Bear Arms Research Paper

Submitted By barnah
Words: 803
Pages: 4

Haley Barna 2/5/12
Right to Bear Arms Essay

Due to the modern-day relation of guns to the majority of death involved crimes in America, it has been questioned for a great deal of time, whether people in today’s society should be allowed to own guns. While the right to own guns is technically already protected in the second amendment, (entitled: the right to bear arms) some people wish to counter this amendment, in order to have a better system of “gun control” and to lower crime rates. One group who has such opinions is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Although they do have valid claims against the use and ownership of guns, and numbers to support those claims, the same can be said for the NRA, (National Rifle Association) who makes their statements based on why guns are necessary for private ownership in the U.S. Personally, I feel that people should be able to own guns in today’s expanding society. My main reasons being that, first, people use guns for protection, second, there would most likely be great resistance from those who own guns to surrender them, and lastly, banning the ability to own guns would cancel out an amendment made by our founding fathers in one of the most important documents which aided in the establishment of our country.
When referring to a crime in relation to a gun, the gun is typically seen as the destructive weapon. However, from the victim’s standpoint, a gun is what saves them. According to a news article from the NRA, Kleck and Marc Gertz found that guns were used for self-protection about 2.5 times annually in the 1990’s. Also, in these instances, the gun was rarely fired, and is mostly used as a scare tactic. If people were not able to own guns, then number of gunshot victims is likely to increase greatly due to the lack of self defense. For instance, just because owning guns would be illegal doesn’t mean that people desperate enough won’t still have one or two. As a result, criminals who were able to get a gun, or multiple guns, would have more control over the situations in which their crimes take place because of the inability for people to fight back successfully.
Also, if the right to bear arms was suddenly revoked, those who would have to surrender their firearms would, simply put, most likely have some understandable rage and may even resist the new law. As a result, creating a law in an effort to reduce violent crime is bound to bring more issues upon the nation in ways of protests and possibly even riots. Since 1991, regardless of a ban on guns, violent crime is down 38%. Also, violent crime rates since 2003 are lower than any time since the mid ‘70s. This information even further lessens the reason to take away an important right. Another reason that people may protest would be their patriotism. For example, in America the people are