Gun Control: an Infringement on Our Rights

The second amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. Many people exercise this right, whether it is for sporting purposes or personal protection. Others choose not to have anything at all to do with guns. It doesn’t matter which group you align with; gun usage is a personal choice and no one should force you to use one or not. The focus of this essay is the “or not” part. There are some people who think just because they don’t like guns, no one else should be allowed to have one. If this theory were to be carried out, many people’s lives would change drastically and complete chaos would ensue. Strict gun control laws are more of a nuisance than deterrents of crime. The crazy murderers and the obsessive stockpilers are always going to have guns no matter how harsh laws become. More gun usage could actually prevent crimes instead of encourage them. Lastly, guns are part of many people’s customs and traditions, and making them harder to obtain will only anger them.

Most gun control laws consist of a rigorous background check that prevents past criminals from obtaining weapons. They also prevent weapons from being sold during certain hours of the day, and ban automatic weapons that are considered unnecessary. The laws also might include a waiting period for certain hand guns so spur of the moment would-be-killers have time to cool down. For the most part, these regulations are fine. Many of them can help fight crime by preventing criminals from getting easy access to arms. But how far is too far? If the government makes laws that ban the sales of weapons to criminals, what is the definition of a criminal? Right now it prevents released felons

like armed robbers and murderers from buying guns. But before too long this could develop into preventing people who have had parking violations and speeding tickets from buying guns, because some statistic somewhere said they are more likely to abuse guns. The laws could go from banning automatic weapons because they aren’t necessary, to banning guns that can fire more than one round, to banning guns altogether. As for the waiting period, one to two days is fine, but the people who want to commit crime are either going to wait it out or break in somewhere else to steal a gun. The crazy people will always have guns. The stricter these laws become, the more of a pain and a hassle it becomes for a law-abiding citizen to obtain one.