Columnists clash with Our Voice

Chris Pitts
Columnist   

    Last week, The Colonnade gave a response in their column, "Our Voice" to the school shootings that have occurred in recent weeks.  While I agree that the monstrous acts of the individuals that took part in these shootings are unparalleled, especially the one man who shot 10 Amish girls execution style, I was quite upset to see the illogical conclusions that followed.  As a Libertarian and lover of the history surrounding our founding, I cannot let these notions pass.  Therefore, here are my retorts to one of their conclusions:
    "And don’t pull that Second Amendment crap, it really only gives a militia the right to bear arms, and since we don’t have the need for a militia anymore then you don’t need the right to bear arms."
    A little known fact about me is that when I read or see stupidity, I get a headache.  After reading that, I passed out.  This statement is entirely ridiculous, and can be retorted by four points.
    Don’t make a claim and then say that anyone retorting that claim cannot use a certain piece evidence to present an argument  to the contrary.  Doing this makes you no better than the federal government withholding evidence from convicted terrorists in Guantanamo Bay.   If we debate gun control, the Second Amendment, and the interpretation thereof, is vital to the debate.
    Look at the Second Amendment before stating what it does or does not say.  The sentence structure is vital to its interpretation.  "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State (In other words, for a state to be free, it needs a militia), the right of the people to keep and bear Arms (this defines what is needed to keep a state free, the right of the people to keep and bear arm, because the Militia is made up of ordinary citizens), shall not be infringed (The government cannot take it away)."
    We need a militia and the right to bear Arms.  Probably the worst thing about modern America is that the idea of our country being 50 separate, sovereign states under the unification of a federal government is no longer predominant in our political thinking.  If neither the states nor the people have the right to bear arms, then only the federal government and its army will have guns, thus making the states and the people vulnerable to oppression.
    The idea of a right being no longer needed is ludicrous.  Our founding fathers believed that our rights, which are based in the Declaration of Independence as being given by our Creator, and protected from the government through the Bill of Rights, are naturally given to us at birth, not through our government.  Therefore, the government cannot take away any right.
    Any argument that states that guns should be outlawed because they are misused is, at best, illogical.  An equivocal argument would be that since rapes occur, though by a minority of men, all men must be castrated at birth.  What must be understood is that the individual committing the crimes is at full fault for these crimes, not the weapons used.  And, humans being attracted to violence and tragedy, allows the news media to exploit such stories for ratings, rather than focusing on stories that have guns being used for self defense. Being responsible about possession of guns is fine, but to say that their misuse is basis for a ban on guns is ridiculous.

Andrew Adams
Columnist

    News of gun violence in schools has stunned America the last few weeks.  These atrocities have led us to wonder what our country can do to defend our school children.  Last week, “Our Voice,” in The Colonnade’s opinion section, brought up the possibility of completely banning all guns.  After reflecting on this and reviewing many statistics, I came to the conclusion that this would create more violence and be detrimental to the future of this nation.
    The city of Washington, D.C. created a virtual ban of all guns by citizens in 1976.  For the next 15 years their district’s homicide rate rose about 200 percent, while the U.S. homicide rate rose only 12percent.
    Kennesaw passed a law in 1982 that required every household to have at least one gun in the house.  In the following years the residential burglary rate dropped 89 percent.  There has not been a single gun-related homicide in Kennesaw since that law was created. 
    It seems ironic that with more guns Kennesaw is far safer than Washington, D.C. which has fewer guns.  But the reason for this is people are less likely to attack someone if they think that person might have a gun. 
    Gary Kleck, a researcher of gun-crime in society, estimates “Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day.”  He goes on to say, “As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.”   
    The National Safety Council reported in 2003 that American citizens are 10 times more likely to die due to a doctor’s negligence than they are to die from gun homicide.  In the three years between 2000 and 2002, there were twice as many football related deaths in schools than there were gun related deaths in schools.  The FBI’s Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms department reported that 40 million guns were purchased in the 1990s, but that the murder rate dropped 39 percent. 
    Opponents of firearms like to argue that guns are killing people.  The problem with this argument is that it’s justifying the murderer.  Claiming that murder is the fault of a gun is saying that the person who fired the gun is not guilty of murder.  A gun is just one tool that psychotic people have used to kill people.  Other tools include knives, cars, pesticides, poisons, anti-freeze, and many other items.  Under the mentality that the tool used for the murder is the murderer, the only time a person can be charged with murder is when he or she kills with their bare hands.
    I’m not a big gun-nut that wants everyone walking down the streets with AK-47s.  I’m just an American that looks at facts and supports the Constitution.  During the writing of the Constitution, the Founders recognized the necessity of the right to bear arms because if a tyrannical government takes over, the people should be able to defend themselves.  Thomas Jefferson stated this eloquently in 1787 when he said, "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
 
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Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 13 2006. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry