Persuasive Essay On Gun Control

1489 Words3 Pages

The right to bear and keep arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Liberals are looking to amend the Constitution or misinterpret the intent of the Second Amendment in order to carry out their desire to ban handguns, even though research has revealed that gun control cannot halt citizens from committing crimes. Gun control laws and restrictions should not be put in place as it would violate our rights and freedom under the Constitution of the United States. Keywords: Constitution, freedom, gun control, Second Amendment While the Founding Fathers of the United States were making a structure of the nation, as stated before in the Constitution, people were afraid that a country with a powerful government and army would …show more content…

In 1993, there were eighty-five thousand crimes involving guns. Even with the enactment of some gun control regulations, murder rates have only decreased eighteen percent over the past twenty years. In fact, seventy-five percent of homicides involving all weapons, not just guns, were committed by those under the age of twenty-four (Gottlieb, 1991). In robberies and assaults, unarmed victims tend to be more likely to die once the perpetrator is armed with a weapon (Gottlieb, 1991). Firearms are usually the main weapons used in robberies or assaults because they are convenient. “Thirty percent of homicides in the United States occurred in the four large cities of New York City, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Chicago” (Gottlieb, 1991). One thing all of these cities have in common is they have the strictest regulations in the nation in regard to the purchase of guns (Gottlieb, 1991). Therefore, one can conclude that gun control is ineffective at curbing violent …show more content…

Congressman Jack R. Kingston of Georgia cautions citizens to look at what occurred in Jamaica after the enactment of very strict gun control laws in 1974. “In Jamaica, the law included random house-to-house searches, secret trials, detention, and mandatory life sentences for possession of one bullet” (Alpers et. al., 2013). Within six months violent crime dropped significantly, however, within a year it went back to the level it was before the gun control law was enacted and it continues to increase (Bijlefeld, 1995). Interestingly, one-third of murders were committed by the police because citizens were not able to protect themselves from tyranny. Kingston wants gun control advocates to realize the importance of the Second Amendment. "You have to worry about the United States government, not merely the burglar" (Bijlefeld, 1995). "Why it is that police may have guns, but you and me and the average American citizen cannot?" says Kingston (Bijlefeld, 1995). Congressman James M. Collins agrees. He believes “Americans must maintain the right to purchase guns for the defense of their loved ones, homes, property and for sporting purposes” (Kruschke,

Open Document