Our Right To Bear Arms Essay Research

Our Right To Bear Arms Essay, Research Paper

18 November 1998Our Right to Bear Arms Gun prohibitionists would have you think that the only legitimate purpose for owning a firearm is “sporting purposes” such as hunting or target shooting. However, the Second Amendment was not included in the Bill of Rights so people could go duck hunting or punch holes in paper targets. There is a lot more to owning a firearm than “sporting purposes”. For most people, a firearm is the most practical and effective means that they have of defending against a criminal attack. “Gun control” is a vague term that means different things to different people. For example, it is unlawful for 14-year-olds to buy firearms (or for that matter, cigarettes or alcohol). There are, to be sure, many adolescents who exhibit more common sense than their parents. However, experience has shown that the activities of people below a certain age (18 – 21) should be restricted due to their general lack of maturity and judgment (Fezell, Individual 23). Laws against minors purchasing firearms are one of many restrictions society places on young people that most of the public would find reasonable. They are, nonetheless, a form of gun control. Teer 2 One of the most serious organizations against gun-control is the National Rifle Association. The NRA is millions of Americans representing a diverse contrast of age, sex, race, and religion. Americans have joined from every state in the union, from every economic background, from every political affiliation (What). What members share with every other member is an appreciation of the shooting sports, belief in our constitutional right to keep and bear arms and, most of all, a commitment to safety, responsibility and freedom. The NRA believes in the Constitution and upholds it with fairness, equality, and the law. They actively pursue some of this country’s oldest and finest traditions, including hunting and recreational shooting. They work hard to support law enforcement and fight hard to keep special interest groups from infringing on our Second Amendment rights. The NRA was incorporated in 1871 to provide firearms training and encourage interest in the shooting sports (What). The scope of this operation requires an annual budget of approximately $80 million (What. NRA structure includes divisions representing firearm safety effort, firearms training, law enforcement programs, junior shooting activities, women’s issues, hunter services, recreational shooting, competitions, gun collecting, and defense of the Second Amendment — without which all of the above would be impossible (What). NRA staff works with such diverse groups as the Boy Scouts of America, 4-H clubs, Teer 3 the American Legion, VFW, hunting and shooting clubs, schools and law enforcement organizations (What). “Gun control” as envisioned by extremist groups such as Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) means something entirely different. To them gun control is a means to an end — gun prohibition. And not just for minors, violent criminals, or those who warrant institutionalization. Groups like HCI ultimately seek to prohibit firearms ownership by anyone except the government (i.e., the police and military). Two points that are central to prohibitionist thinking are: in order for a society to be civilized, ordinary people must be disarmed; and disarmament of the citizenry can only be achieved gradually, or as HCI’s founder Nelson T. Shields, III. put it, “a slice” at a time (Fezell, American 20). Gun-prohibitionists, being true elitists, deem themselves to know what is best for the rest of us and camouflage their true agenda in order to lessen resistance from the citizenry (Fezell, American 17). However, when writing in statist newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times gun-prohibitionists are often quite candid about their ultimate goal. According to Fezzel, in an op-ed piece entitled “Disarm The Citizenry”, The Washington Post, Friday, April 5, 1996, page A19, columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote: Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its Teer 4 citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic – purely symbolic – move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. (Fundamental 19) Mr. Krauthammer’s belief that the disarmament of the American public must be achieved gradually is nothing new. The July 26, 1976 issue of The New Yorker magazine contained an interview with Mr. Shields “A Reporter At Large – Handguns” (Fezell, Fundamental 22). On pages 57-58 of The New Yorker article, Mr. Shields was very forthright as to the ultimate agenda of his then-fledgling organization: We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily – given the political realities – going to be very modest. Of course, it’s true that politicians will then go home and say, `ThisTeer 5 is a great law. The problem is solved.’ And it’s also true that such statements will t