Gun Control Essay -- Second Amendment The Right To Bear Arms

Gun control in the United States has been a controversial issue for some time now. So much so that the Supreme Court even refuses to address this issue directly. Gun control really boils down to the the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Many people have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and the trenches are dug in deep on this issue. The Second Amendment can not provide the right to bear all types of arms to protect the people from governmental tyranny. If the Second Amendment was absolute, then we would allow the public to possess nuclear weapons, missiles, and other such arms, because like the 9 mm handgun that is an arm, a nuclear warhead is also a type of arm. The more our government restricts our rights to own certain types of arms, the more freedom we lose. Should the government make citizens disclose information such as your views, associations, and personal history in order to obtain an arm? Which types of Arms should be prohibited? The Second Amendment c learly states â€Å"A well regulated Milita, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.† The question then is not if we should restrict arms ownership, but how much we should restrict arms ownership or how much freedom we are willing to sacrifice?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Second Amendment does not say that certain peoples with certain views are the only ones who are allowed to bear arms. The government must be very careful about what they ask in order not to infringe on our personal rights. I feel that it is wrong for government agencies to ask your political views in order for you to obtain a gun. It is not their right to decide which views are acceptable for gun ownership. The government must provide the right to bear arms equally to all citizens. If the government could completely regulate who had weapons and who didn’t have weapons there would be no equality among the people. The reason being is the government would abusively allow their supports to own weapons and the non supports would be without weapons to defend themselves. This would create an unbalanced society that would install fear in to the non supporters. So where should the government stop? I believe the government should only be able run a cross check wi th some database of repeat offenders and known terrorists. All who don’t raise a ... ...u may think that owning one of these weapons would increase shooting and so forth, but I believe that if you want to shoot someone you are going to do it regardless of what type of weapon you have, and you could possible in danger a lot more people with a now easily obtain legal sniper style rifle. In most states there is no check what so ever other than you age in order to obtain such a gun. On the other hand there are extensive background checks in order to obtain a .22 Cal handgun of much less power. I don’t think that we need to dictate what type of fire arms people own, instead let us set a some other type of limit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All things considered, I think criminals are obtaining more and more illegal arms with great diversity while the general publics’ choices in firearms are becoming much thinner and under matched with today’s criminals. We must change the laws to allow our citizens to actually protect themselves from these people. And the government should do only minimal background checks in order to assure society as a whole protection and not its own. Works Citied â€Å"ACLU Policy #47† http://www.lectlaw.com/files/con11.htm Copyright  © William Thomas