The Bill of Rights was established by our Founding Fathers. I personally consider myself a Constitutional Conservative and believe that what the Constitution says (including the Bill of Rights) is the law of the land and is not a "living, breathing document" like others believe. With this, I believe fully in the Second Amendment. I believe that citizens have the right to bear arms and that right shall not be taken away.
When it comes to the topic of gun control, it seems to me that it is only ever widely discussed during severe and dramatic instances. For example, after every mass shooting in the United States under the Obama administration, Democrats called for harsh and ridiculous gun control measures. This would be debated and argues and fought over for a few weeks after the horrific tragedy and then it would eventually fizzle out and America would direct it's focus on a different subject instead. This may seem shocking to think about, a serious topic such as gun control is only really discussed during times of tragedy. However, there is an extremely simple reason for this. Those who call for strict gun control, especially after tragedy, are spurred by emotion. This is the same thought-process that gave us the Patriot Act, TSA, imprisoning Japanese during WWII, and McCarthyism. All of these, including gun control, have been developed out of emotional fear and rammed through in the name of public safety. When discussing gun control, or any topic for that matter, you can't just rely on pure emotion to be able to spark significant change. I highly doubt that most people truly understand what the Second Amendment truly is in place for. So obviously, I'll explain because I'm a know-it-all.
The Bill of Rights in my opinion, were written in order of most significance. That is basic human psychology to list things in order of what is most important to you. So our Founding Fathers would, to no surprise, list the main rights of United States citizens in order of most importance. For example, the First Amendment protects free speech - which was a big reason as to why the colonies revolted - they had little to know representation in Britain, and were taxed extraordinarily high. Their voices were not hear and were suppressed. So that would be very important to the Founding Fathers, that our voices were never suppressed again (I'm sure they would be pretty sad if they saw college campuses today....). The Second Amendment was put in place not to allow anyone to buy a gun if they wanted to, but to protect the people. The Second Amendment is not for hunting or sport, but to ensure that if the government should ever become tyrannical, the people would be armed to overthrow it. America literally revolted against tyranny in order to become free of Britain's choking grasp. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure that if anyone ever tries to do this to America again, they would be stopped. That is why we have the Second Amendment. It is to protect the people against the evils of government.
Now headlines of tyranny and dictatorship may not be as common in the news as gun crime is (unless you're CNN in which case we hear a lot of this.). It seems to most people, that gun crimes are much more prevalent and a danger to America than tyranny is. While that may be true, few knew about the Third Reich's rise to power before it was too late. Tyranny can develop anywhere, and we may be unable to even see it happening until it's there. We are given the right to arm ourselves to ensure that if this hidden evil ever does come to fruition, we can be standing at the doorsteps locked and loaded and ready to fight back.
Look back at history. Every dictator, whether it be Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Kim Jung Un, etc. one of their first acts in command has been to outlaw guns from the people, or at least severely cripple the right to own a firearm. It is for the exact reason as to why we are given this right. The people are defenseless against an armed dictator. According to Staff Sergeant Sean Rowe of the United States Army, "history shows that when the people are unarmed, the police and military controlled by the government (thanks socialism) can easily turn on the people. We can not be sitting duck, we must keep our God given right to bear arms." This can not be better expressed.
I can keep arguing about apocalyptic "what-ifs" this entire article, but instead I will also argue why gun control is honestly extremely pointless and harmful for America.
Gun control does not end gun violence.
Look at the drug trade in the country today. Currently, on a federal level, Marijuana is illegal to use. However, there are millions of Americans illegally using it today. How is this possible? The Black Market. Those who commit crimes using guns are already breaking the law and do not think twice about breaking it more than once. If guns are regulated to extreme measures or even abolished like some radical Democrats, such as California State Senator Kevin De Leon, push for those who are committing crimes will still purchase guns, the exact same way millions of Americans purchase illegal drugs. The same advocates of legalizing Marijuana are also much of the same group pushing for stricter gun control - the logic contradicts itself entirely. People who truly want firearms will get firearms one way or another. A perfect example of this is former State Senator Leland Yee, a Democrat from California. He was arrested for illegally selling firearms to a radical Islamic terrorist group. Clearly, the Black Market is present in the country. (For those of you who question the legitimacy of this and any of my other facts I present, in the words of Cenk Ugar: "Google it.")
It is clear that the legality behind gun ownership is not a real issue to the monsters who plot and execute these horrific attacks during the numerous mass murders we've seen in this country. According to the NRA 96% of all mass shootings that have occurred in the United States in the past 5 years have been guns not registered to the shooter. This makes logical sense. Why would someone who plans on killing another person, or multiple, really try and legally obtain a gun? This does not make any sort of sense to me.
This section is meant specifically for the "alt-left" (Yes there is an alternative left as well as an alternative right - both groups suck) who believe in banning guns. Feel free to read it, or skip over it. 350 million guns are already in the United States, and that is just the legal firearms. It is literally as impossible to confiscate every single gun as it is to deport all of the illegal immigrants in this country. Lawmakers wouldn't even be able to regulate a gun confiscation policy. This policy would also violate the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments by the way. I will end this section by reiterating my point above: there will still be guns in the hands of evil people. The Black Market will just grow as a result, but the good and innocent people who wouldn't use guns illegally, are the ones affected. Taking guns away only takes away from the innocent people who use guns for legal reasons, or even just to have as a sense of security. It does not stop the evil people from getting their hands on firearms, but makes the innocent Americans sitting ducks. Also, whoever actually believes in banning guns also can't because according the the Supreme Court ruling of US vs Miller, military grade firearms are allowed in defense of the state. The state is not the government in this ruling. The state is the people.
As a quick side-note, if you honestly believe in banning guns, then why the heck don't you condemn President Obama for arming Syrian rebels who were linked to ISIS?
Coming back to my main argument, I do not believe that gun control is truly the answer to what should be done in this country. It is completely ineffective. For example, the San Bernardino shooting. California has some of, if not the strictest gun laws in the country. However, the attack still occurred, and no laws stopped the shooting. Another example is Mexico. There are 160,000 gun related deaths each year and yet they have gun control that rivals that of France and other European countries. Why is the number so high with strict gun control? The cartels are terrorizing the people and the only thing stopping them are private citizens forming self defense militias with illegal guns. This is all according to research done in a 2012 extensive international study done at Yale. Speaking of France, as mentioned earlier, they have absolutely fierce gun control laws in the country, but the ISIS attack on November 15th, 2015 was not stopped by the law. Finally, the city of Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws, on par with California, but yet a person is shot in the city on average every 2.8 hours according to Pew Research. The people have to have the ability to arm themselves.
Promoting gun control does not necessarily correlate to lesser violence. On the exact same day as the horrible mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, Min Yingjun went into a primary school in central China and stabbed and wounded 22 children. The violence is just as deadly, but the weapon used differed. Two years later, a Chinese terrorist group stabbed over 100 people, killing 29. Mass murders are committed by more than just guns. Gun control merely makes it harder for these attacks to be stopped. According to the United States Department of Defense, 2.5 million crimes are stopped in the United States are stopped as a result of a gun being used, whether it is actually shot or just shown. Guns are used 300x more to save lives than kill lives - in 2014, there were only 8145 gun murders.
I do not believe gun control is the solution to the violence that is present in our country. Mass shootings have not been as prevalent as they are today. Guns have been legal all throughout our history, and it is only recently, that we have had a large number of psychopaths killing with guns. We have not heard about mass shootings in malls, convenience stores, etc. as we do today, and we rarely ever heard about mass shootings in schools and such until recently in history. This is not because of the guns, but because of societal decay. We are becoming worse and worse of a society. Our children are being raised with video games portraying gun death as "competitive and fun." Video games such as Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty are main contributors to this. You see almost every movie nowadays having some sort of gun shown. Children as young as four are watching their favorite superheroes shooting and killing the bad guys. Human life is shown to be meaningless in movies and video games today. Our society is decaying. Guns are shown to be cool and fun and not as the feared, dangerous, and respected defense mechanisms as they once were. I believe that this is a direct correlation to the increase in gun crime in America. It is because our society is literally decaying. (I will be going into more detail on the tragic changes American society is undergoing in more detail in another blog post in the future.)
How can we fix this problem? The issue does not start with guns. I believe that the focal point on this issue should be mental health. We need to stop blaming guns for the actions of the wielders. We need to call out the issue for what it is: a mental health epidemic. Most if not all of the mass murders in America have resulted in a psychotic individual. I believe that every general practitioner should be trained to perform mental health screenings and when Americans go in to get their annual checkup (and thanks to Obamacare almost every American should be able to do this) they also undergo an extensive mental health exam. This way we can be able to decide if there are mental health concerns in individuals they can then receive treatment and help for their issues. They will also be put into a medical database in which permit distributors are given access to. It is currently illegal for Americans with mental health issues to purchase a gun license and I will keep it that way. All Americans are required to hold a permit to be able to purchase a gun and this includes at gun shows as well. Anyone can buy a gun when they please, but they must pass the background check which includes the annual mental health examination. The only two reasons an American should be denied a gun is due to a mental health problem, for the safety of our country, and if they have committed a moderate to severe crime within the past 20 years, then they are not allowed to own a gun. This will also show up in the background check and depending on the severity of the crime determines that once the 20 year mark hits whether or not they can still hold a permit. This is solely because in my opinion, if you commit a crime you are violating someone else's God given rights. If you go against the laws of this nation then you are disrespecting this country. If you disrespect this country, you give up your rights. All of these will be shown in the background checks that permit providers will have. We need to stop focusing on guns and instead focus on the serious mental health epidemic plaguing our great nation. While my theory will not stop all gun violence or necessarily prevent another mass murder from occurring, it does give people their Second Amendment right back and also allows for the good people in this country to be able to defend themselves when evil arises. If there ever happens to be an individual who poses a threat to society and attempts to commit a heinous act of gun violence, there will be people there to stop him. People will still buy weapons on the Black Market. Gun violence will still occur. It is impossible to stop either in this country. However, there will also be defenders of this great nation ready to protect at a moments notice. Those defenders are the good and innocent citizens who share this great country with everyone else. Gun violence will decrease with my theory, and America will prosper as a result.
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. God Bless America.
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