I have never claimed to be an expert on anything, anything at all. I commonly can see both sides to arguments and it may take me a while to come to a decision. The issue of gun control being one of those. I do not own a gun nor any other weapon except my kitchen knives. That is just my choice currently. I was taught how to shoot at a very young age by my father and I would prefer that my children learn to shoot, learn gun safety, and learn to respect guns as I did.
Lately here there was a mass shooting at a L.A. Fitness. (Completely senseless tragedy and my heart goes out to the victims and their families.) This has led more people to talk about stricter gun control. The need to ban all hand held guns and to place a 25 year sentence if you are caught with one. I do not believe this is the answer… how many times do we need to prove that by banning something you are making sure that one thing is going to be more desired? (I am very strongly against banning books.)
Often you will hear this with the debate about the Second Amendment (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). Now, this does not GRANT the right, it preserves and guarantees the right to be able to have Arms. It does not also say that you have to be in a Militia to have Arms nor is it a condition. There has been arguments that we do not need a Militia in this day and time so we do not need to bear arms as a collective. After much research I believe the founding fathers added this part to insure a Militia could be formed if the need were to ever arise and to give a reason why the right to bear Arms must be protected. I know I must be doing an awful job explaining this so I would encourage people to go look it up, read up on it and come to your own conclusion.
I fully believe that banning handguns or such will not stop the violence such as was here. There is a bigger problem, a root cause, that needs to be examined more and there is no simple answer. Obviously, I do not have the answer either. How I wish I did… Here I wanted to leave two of my favorite quotes about the subject.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
—Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
—Alexander Hamilton
