Are you willing to sit back and become a victim of violent crime or allow the government to tamper with your civil liberties? In recent years, anti-gun politicians have attempted to control guns in the name of crime prevention this is an assault on the Second Amendment rights of US citizens . The Second Amendment states, ” A well regulated Militia being necessary to the Security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Not only did our Founding Fathers focus their debate on the right of people to keep and bear arms, they devoted energy to encouraging future generations to defend theses freedoms.
In defense of gun ownership, Alexander Hamilton said, “If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens. During our country’s development hundreds of law-abiding citizens were able to take up arms against lawless mobs to defend themselves, their family, their homes, and their businesses.
They did the job law enforcement simply could not do. Lives were saved. Robberies were prevented. Homes and businesses were defended and left intact, all thanks to the Second Amendment to our constitutional, the right to keep and bear arms. Americans have made it clear they reject most government intrusions on their basic civil rights, including the right of gun ownership.
According to an April 18, 1994 study by Penn and Schoen Associates, Inc. as many as 85 percent of American adults said they are unwilling to forfeit basic civil liberties even if it could enhance their personal safety. 5 percent agreed that police and the justice systems couldn’t protect them; people said they have to take more responsibility for safeguarding themselves. 62 percent said the need for personal guns ownership is increasing, and a majority is unwilling to accept laws that restrict gun ownership greatly.
Guns, Crime, and Freedom states that, no gun law which restricts the right of law-abiding citizens to own guns has been proven to reduce crime or homicides, not even the Brady Law and the “Clinton Crime Bill. These two laws still did not keep guns out of criminals’ hands.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. FBI statistics accumulated on a countrywide level show that in states that have strict gun control laws, there are higher crime rates. If gun control laws have any effect, it may be to increase crime!
For instance, New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as “the most stringent gun law” in the nation in 1966; two years later the murder rate was up 46 percent and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled. In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures, and its murder rate, then a low 2. per 100,000 per year, tripled to 7. 2 by 1977. In opposition, states with liberal gun carry laws have much lower crime rates. In Florida the homicide rate dropped from 37 percent above the national average to 3 percent below the national average after the state changed its concealed carry law in 1987.
In 1987, Florida’s murder rate was 11. 4 per 100,000 compared with the national rate of 8. 2. By 1992, the national rate had risen to 9. per 100,000 while Florida’s had dropped to 9, and in 1993, it continued to drop another . 3 to 8. 7 per 100,000. Between 1987 and 1992, rape increased nationally by 14. 4 percent. But in Florida, it increased only 2. 9 percent and in 1993 rape in Florida decreased . 2 percent. Florida issued 204,108 concealed carry licenses during the first six and half years that the law was in effect.
Only seventeen licenses have been revoked for unlawful conduct that involved possession of a firearm. That is . 008 percent; that means eight thousands of 1 percent. If every law ever passed had that kind of success rate; we would have virtually NO CRIME! More restrictions on gun ownership will not solve the “gun problem” We don’t have a gun problem in America; we have an enforcement problem. Tough laws are already on the books to remove criminals from society and ensure that they don’t have access to guns, but these laws need to be used more effectively.
Existing federal and state laws must be applied to a criminal who uses guns, drug users, drug dealers, and all other lawbreakers. Under the Gun Control Act 1968 (GCA’68) as amended in 1986, it is presently a federal felony punishable by a five-year prison term and a $250,000 fine for a convicted felon to be in possession of an “assault weapon. ” That law covers all felons whether convicted by state, country, municipal, or federal court. Every thirteen seconds an American gun owner uses a firearm in defense against a criminal.
If federal law enforcement agencies did their jobs with respect to guns and convicted violent felons using only GCA’68, as reformed, gun control would not be an issue and we would be a long way toward solving the violent crime problem. We would be getting criminals off the streets and into jail. Americans want violent criminals off the streets and out of their neighborhoods. The bottom line is Americans are upset about crime and soundly reject government solutions that infringe on their rights and liberties. Ultimately, it is a person’s choice to use firearms to commit violent crimes.
So criminals should be controlled, not the guns which they share with millions of law-abiding citizens. Gun control supporters claim that gun control lowers crime rate. We as people need to take a stand and fight for our Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Gun control advocates need to realize that passing laws that honest gun owners will not obey is a self-defeating strategy. Gun owners are not about to surrender their liberties or their right to bear arms. The Federal Govement of the United States should not be able to take away the right of law-abiding citizens to own a gun.