Gun Control

Gun Control Does Not Reduce Crime

Americans 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 these

leaders wanted to make it easier to oppress the free blacks. This

oppression was accomplished by passing laws making it illegal in many

places for black people to own firearms. With that effort, they assured

themselves that the black population would be subject to their control, and

would not have the ability to fight back. At the same time, the people who

were most intent on denying black people their basic rights walked around

with their firearms, making it impossible to resist their efforts. An

unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one, and these armed men

saw their plans work completely. It was a full century before the civil

rights activists of the 1960s were able to restore the constitutional

freedoms that blacks in this country were granted in the 1860s.

Today's gun control activists are a slightly different breed. They claim

that gun violence in this country has gotten to a point where something

must be done to stop it. They would like to see criminals disarmed, and

they want the random violence to stop. I agree with their sentiments.

However, they are going