Let’s talk about guns. I should start out saying that I am fascinated by weapons. I like collecting them, I like practicing to use them, and over all, I think that some of mankind’s greatest achievements were in the field of weapons design and manufacturing. I mean really, take a part a well made handgun or rifle, and look at its workings. Swiss clocks are not made with the level of precision that an MP5 has. I feel fortunate that I live in a country that lets me pursue my fascination, with in the reasonable limit that I don’t use said weapons on other people without a good reason. Now I should pause a second and remind people that I am not a Republican. I don’t like Bush or Rush. I think Jesus was a pot smoking hippie who had a few good ideas, but mostly was an annoying twit who pissed of the Romans and the Jews in power (which was never a good idea back then). I am not even a member of the NRA; they have a few good ideas, but are a bit extreme at times. That all being said, I think the Second Amendment to the Constitution is possibly the great part of our legal frame work. It’s part of what makes America great and unique.
First to take a step back, and have little information on who gun control advocates can blame the Second Amendment on. The man responsible: King James the Second, the last Catholic King of England. One Jimmy took over, his country was mostly Protestant, and not entirely happy about him ruling. He shut down Parliament, and banned Protestants from owning weapons. Once he was ousted, the English Bill of Rights was passed in 1689, and one of said rights was that Protestants have the right to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”. So, much like many things in American law, we ripped off the Second Amendment from something the Brits did first.
Now, since not everyone knows exactly what the amendment says, here it is, as it appears on the original copy of the Bill of Rights
“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.”
It’s that damn comma that causes so many problems. I will admit it’s not the best piece of writing, but then, this wasn’t it original form…
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”
…that was. What does that all mean? Basically, anyone can pack a weapon, and not be involved in a regulated militia, but that said militias (now called the Nation Guard) are vital to a state’s security. All of this was put in to the Constitution to make sure that while the federal government will be strong, the States and the citizens will not be defenseless against it. Through a series of revisions, the defining and what was probably considered extra verbiage was dropped, and that comma is really more of a period. A State should have a militia. People have the right to be armed.
“But guns kill people! Wont somebody think of the children!” As much as I am loathing to use this cliché, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. You can be hit by a car, beaten, stabbed, poisoned, drowned, starved, and so on. And that’s assuming you are just killed. You can still be hurt, raped, and/or robbed. Some people of course like to point out that guns help commit crimes. True, a weapon helps commit crime; but it doesn’t matter what weapon it is. You are just as dead if I kick you to death as you are if I stab or shoot you. But, I know that logic is rarely enough, so let’s look at some numbers. Let’s take a gun free country, say England. It’s a beast to get a gun in England legally; rifles and shotguns are not even as common as they are here. Criminals of course, have guns, because they are criminals. According to the statistics provided by the British Home Office, there were 1,220,198 incidents of violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and so on), in 2005, with a population of about 60,776,238. The US on the other hand had 6,367,589 incidents of violent crime (number provided by the Department of Justice) in 2005, with a population of round 300 million. Now, we have more crimes committed, no doubt about it. But when you look at the incident rates, there is one violent crime per 47.619 people in the US, compared to 1 per 49.808 in England. You are more likely to be beaten, robbed, raped, or killed in the UK than you are here in the US. Is this because we allow weapons? Maybe; but look at it this way, over there you can assume granny is a law abiding citizen and thus don’t worry about her packing heat. Over here, granny may be a life time NRA member and expert marksmen. Yes we have more gun deaths; that’s because people over there are getting stabbed when they would have been shot over here.
Now for a brief section on children: if a kid gets shot, an adult is to blame, and it’s likely the parent. You can blame society, the media, or whoever you want, but ultimately, barring being an accidental bystander being shot, a parent fucked up somewhere along the line. It’s not hard to lock a gun; it’s even less difficult to not load the damn things when they are just sitting around. Furthermore, it’s not hard to teach a kid how to properly act around firearms. Rule one: don’t touch them. Rule two: don’t be around other kids holding them. Rule three: if you see one unattended or another kid holding one, get an adult. End of the goddamn lesson. If you cannot or will not teach your kids how to be safe, it’s your fault if they get hurt, not Smith and Wesson’s.
The Founding Fathers wanted us to be able to defend ourselves, both from each other, and from our government. To take away some ones right to be armed is to effectively take away their ability to defend themselves, and hands total control of their life over to the government. The criminals will never go unarmed; where there is a will, there is a gun. Criminals will likely always have bigger and better guns too. That being said, one doesn’t become a criminal because one wants to work, or wants to do things the hard way. You become one to get something you want in the fastest, easiest way possible. Dodging bullets is never easy and getting shot sucks. Furthermore, once you have no ability to defend yourself, you are effectively owned by the government. It’s not likely that in a modern democracy the police would start large scale operations of just start snatching people off the street and making them disappear, but it can and does happen even now in small scale. It’s not likely that democracy will turn in to a full on fascist state, but it can and has happened. The one thing, the only thing, that stops the government from abusing its authority, from crushing the people, is the people. It up to me, to you the reader, and to the people near us to be ready to do what is needed to preserve our freedoms. That usually means filing suit against the government, protesting, and voting for the people we think will best serve us. However, there may come a day when we have to “vote from the roof tops”, whne we may have to take up arms and remind the powers that be that the power of this nation comes from its people, not the leaders. As long as the people in charge know that out there, spread all over the nation, are people who are willing to fight to hold on to their freedoms, they will never be able to take too much. Once a population is unarmed, there is nothing to stop the government any more.
“…what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
-Thomas Jefferson
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