As Congress gears up for a discussion on limiting firearms that a citizen may own, the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should be paramount in their minds. All across the country cities and towns are having the same discussion on firearm ownership based on the recent mass slayings by crazed individuals on unarmed citizens in public places. Thomas Jefferson had the following to say about firearms during 1774:
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws 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. (Cesare Beccaria On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book)
Today many Americans have the exact same thoughts about what Jefferson said on the subject about limiting firearms from citizens. It is common sense that there are bad people and good people, those who commit crimes and those who don’t.
Recommended Bill of Rights from the Virginia Ratifying Convention
Categories: Arms
Date: June 27, 1778
That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
Criminals can and do gain access to firearms and for sure the hardened types have obtained automatic firearms for their use while the everyday citizen buys a water pistol in comparison at their local gun shop. So who is better equipped, the criminal or the common everyday law abiding citizen? But it is the lone gunman that has spurred the latest round of gun control talks due to the mass slayings in recent months.
There is no doubt that there is a segment of the population and even politicians that would like to see an unarmed populace. The government should have no worry about a civil uprising of gun toting citizens taking on the government. The government has enough sophisticated firepower to blast the “water pistol toting” public to dust.
Part of the whole purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to keep the populace armed against a tyrannical freedom limiting government. One could argue that the odds of the government putting an iron boot on the back of the neck of our citizens would be an easy task indeed; check Syria’s recent massive killing of their own population. Appears the populace has an infringement on their second Amendment rights when it comes to having an appropriate firepower response to a tyrannical government takeover.
So how does this sound as an argument for gun control: If we take all the guns away from the public and don’t sell anymore everyone would be safe; a ridiculous statement, for sure.
Maybe the best way to protect the general populace in public places is to have well-armed personnel to protect against that lone gunman bent on mass killings? Why give the criminal the opportunity to be successful against an unarmed public; makes no sense. It makes common sense to defend against a mass killing spree of a lone gunman. After all how much is a human life worth? Ask those poor saddened families that lost their child at Newtown what their loved one meant to them. Why not protect public venues like malls, theaters and schools as soon as possible with armed trained personnel, our very lives depend on it.
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