Phd Isaac newton only

Rough Draft

James Lockwood

COM 170

11 Jan 2016

Julie Conlon

Gun Control takes away the rights given by our forefathers

Your home is invaded and you are unable to protect it due to a law making it illegal to own a firearms. With gun control criminals will continue to get illegal firearms and the law abiding citizens will not. The government is trying to take our given rights given by the United States Constitution.

"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." (US Constitution, 1791)

The citizens of the United States are given the right to bear arms so we should be able to adequately arm ourselves in a fashion that best protects us from today's modern day threats. The threat of Militarizing Police or the government turning on its citizens, as with the Japanese Americans during Pearl Harbor. During the "Attacks in France" terrorist killed people throughout Paris, none of which had the ability to protects themselves due to gun control. The shootings in San Bernardino is another example. Had the employees been allowed to arm themselves they might have been able to stop the shooters. The simple thought of the population possibly being armed is alone a deterrent. These examples are why our forefathers wrote the 2nd Amendment into the Constitution of the United States.

Statistics of those countries which have enacted gun laws, prove that it does not work. It is a myth that countries with gun bans or strict gun laws reduce crime. Guns do not kill, those armed with bad intentions do. Australia, Britain, France, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland have very strict gun control laws of some kind. Those countries all have higher crime rates and/or crimes using other types of weapons other than guns. I've added quotes from Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser out of a gun study from Harvard Law published in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694):

" Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. " (Kates & Mauser, 2007)

"[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 – emphases in original)" (Kates & Mauser, 2007)

Gun control, simply put, does not reduce crime.

States with conceal and carry laws have reduced crime by allowing citizens to protect themselves. When criminals have committed crimes against individuals or business owners they have been met with resistance or held at gun point until police arrive. When citizens have the right to carry a firearm, criminals have considerably reduced thought to commit crimes against them. " Based on 25 years of correlated statistics from all of the more than 3,000 American counties, Lott and Mustard conclude that adoption of these statutes has deterred criminals from confrontation crime and caused murder and violent crime to fall faster in states that adopted this policy than in states that did not." (Lott & Mustard, 1997) Guns do not kill, those armed with bad intensions do. Conceal and carry should be allowed in every state.

Studies prove gun control is not the answer. Regardless, it is the right of the individual to choose if armed or not. I encourage you to exercise your 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, and join or support organizations like the NRA.

References

Kates and Mauser (2007). Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder Suicide? Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694) Retrieved from http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Lott and Mustard (1997). Crime, Deterrence, and Right‐to‐Carry Concealed Handguns. 26 J. Legal Stud Retrieved from http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Madison, J (1791). United States Bill of Rights. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution