2nd Amendment

The 2nd Amendment has been a very controversial topic over the past year with the recent open carry law introduced to the public. This has caused much confusion amongst the right to bear arms and the overlooking Federal government’s role in controlling what it seems dangerous to the public. Our first eight amendments of the Constitution are direct restrictions on the federal government, and the 2nd amendment does not specifically grant the right for people to bear arms in a sense most would have believed. It does however forbid the federal government from infringing on your unalienable rights to defend yourself, it specifically says you shall not be infringed. This targets Congress, the Judicial and Executive branches of government and means they cannot pass a law, or sign anything that infringes on your right to bear arms or defend yourself.

In the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Illinois, the Supreme Court abolished a ban on firearms because McDonald went against the state saying that he could not even defend himself from his own neighborhood that was being overrun by crime and violence. He wanted it to be so that Chicago had the same gun rights as any other state, and won. The man noticed that one of the robbers that was one of his neighbors and he felt helpless without a right to bear arms, he simply wanted to be able to defend himself and not become a victim in his own home. I think with proper gun regulation and screenings with a possible requirement of a firearm safety course this was a definite win for our rights of the 2nd Amendment and its ability to provide us with the right to bear arms.

The case of Columbia v. Heller, is a good example of how an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment can be misconstrued. Heller came...

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... will not stop fighting until guns have been completely banned and anti-gun control advocates will not stop fighting until all efforts to regulate the firearms industry have been terminated. If advocates of gun control plan to further argue for their "right" to eradicate firearms from the general population, new arguments will need to be developed that will hold up to scrutiny. Children are not dying in masses at the hand of some gun wielding maniac and average citizens do not decide to go on killing sprees. The Second Amendment is always going to mean that individuals have the right to own firearms. The only way to change that meaning will be to amend the Amendment or have it removed from the Constitution. In the future, public opinion may be swayed concerning the gun control issue, but for the present, the American people still demand their right to own a firearm.