Our great constitution guarantees us particular rights. One of these, and arguably the most important of these rights, is our right to bear arms, our Second Amendment rights. Sadly, I’ve spoken to many people who don’t seem to understand the importance of that right, and who seem to believe many things about guns, and gun control that just are not true.
I find this pressing because of our current President. Obama is very much a liberal, and liberals have always attacked our second amendment rights. Obama has, over the past months of his administration, appointed many people to various positions of power who are very much opposed to the individual right to bear arms. Our president has enough to chew on now with his socialist health care ‘reform’ but once that is defeated (hopefully) some attention may shift onto our second amendment rights.
We cannot allow our elected officials to infringe on our right to bear arms. Every time the federal or state government restricts our right to bear arms, we take another step down a slippery slope. Our founding fathers included that amendment for a reason, and a very important one, the defense of our rights.
If we lose the ability or means to defend our own rights we’re in trouble. To illustrate this let’s take a look at some examples. The UK. Their constitution did not guarantee them that right like ours does, so in 1997 Parliament banned all guns. A few years later they even banned most knives, and made it illegal to carry a knife. In fact, they are now requiring pub owners to replace their pint glasses with ones made of shatterproof plastics. Apparently the English government does not even trust their citizens to drink out of glasses now. Their reasoning is that such glasses can be broken and used as weapons. What will they ban next?
From 1998 to 2005 the number of injuries and deaths from handguns increased by 340 percent. 340 percent. This isn’t surprising though. In the two years following the UK’s ban, the use of handguns in crime went up by 40 percent. This should make it clear that taking away a citizen’s right to bear arms only increases crime.
An excellent study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, compared rates of murder to gun owner ship in nearly every European country. The study found that countries with wider spread gun ownership had fewer murders. This means that the fewer weapons in the hands of the citizenry the higher the murder rate.
It’s not as if this is just the UK. In Australia nearly the exact same thing happened. After a tragic massacre involving a rifle, the Australian government initiated a buy back program, which effectively took long arms out of the hands of its citizens. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. The number of long arms used in crime increased. Their government succeeded only in disarming its law-abiding citizens, and those are precisely the people that we want to be armed.
One thing we need to realize though is that our second amendment is not just for self-defense. Our right to bear arms is meant to protect us from our government. It’s the last line of defense for the people. It is what guarantees our ability to fight for our rights, against whoever threatens them.
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.” –Adolf Hitler
Right Again
A gun in every home and peace on every street
Published: Monday, November 2, 2009
Updated: Monday, November 2, 2009
 "Photo: The Signpost")
The Signpost
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Throughout the history of our nation, we've been shown that when you try to limit the rights of the people by taking something away, they find something else to replace it with. In this day and age, I shudder to think what may be seen as a suitable replacement for firearms.
Personally, I have no intention to get a concealed wepons permit or even have guns in my house, but I'm glad there are those who do.
Example: "Sure we as a people need to figure out how to stop crime, gun related or otherwise but we must figure out how to do so without leaving ourselves as a nation and as citizens venerable to ternary or terrarium."We'll be leaving ourselves venerable to ternary or terrarium? You mean that we'll be well respected by a form of mathematics containing three variables and enclosures containing a variety of plants and small animals? I've been trying to win the respect of my terrarium for years and all I had to was destroy the second amendment, what a fool I have been.
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