Gun control is one of the most contentious conversations you can have in politics these days, whether conservative or liberal, and even among these groups, the extent to which gun control should be implemented is an issue. However, when gun control is broken down into its constituent parts, it starts to be a lot easier to fall on the side of the Second Amendment. 

Most people around the world believe in a right to self-preservation. It is hard to argue that a person has committed murder if they were attacked first or if their home was broken into; a person has a natural instinct to protect them self and the ones they love and few would argue against that. Although people might disagree on what is needed to defend a home, a .22 rifle is not going to do the job. 

The issue comes down to the fact that if you need to stop someone from hurting or killing you or your loved ones, you shoot to kill. There can be no second guessing in scenarios like this. No average Joe can defend themselves with a sword or chair when the invader has a firearm, legally obtained or not. This is perhaps the most obvious need for a firearm and the best argument against the disarming of the general public. Shootings, whether at school or our places of worship, in this country are becoming more and more common and rising at an alarming rate, but that is the point, they are increasing. According to Stanford University’s Mass Shootings in America Data Project, there were only nine mass shootings between 1920 and 1964, a 44-year period, despite the fact that there were not nearly the kinds of restrictions on firearms that there are today. 

The fearmongering of those who would see weapons taken out of the hands of law-abiding citizens projects this problem as being mutable through legislation and fails to see the problems inherent in its follow through. First and foremost, when a law like that is passed, it either turns law-abiding citizens into criminals or it grandfathers the owners into the new law, neither of which solves the problem. Second, it assumes that these laws will be followed and that those who are willing to take lives in a shooting will, for some reason, follow the law. People who have a drive to kill people in a mindless rampage of violence have lost the kind of control and humanity that allows laws to function properly. 

Third, if somehow these laws are done in such a way that it actually prevents the potential shooter from acquiring the weapon, would it really stop a determined individual? Spain would tell you no; in 2015, a 13-year-old student shot and killed a teacher and injured four other students with a crossbow and a machete. Still, even with rather strict laws, Spain has seen a number of terrorist attacks that have seen both firearms, like the one in 2017 which killed 13 and injured over 100, and other means used, like the Madrid metro bombing in 2004, which killed over 200 and injured over 2,000. 

Where there is a will, there is a way for sick people to kill others and our laws mean nothing to them or their cause. 

Photo from lifesizepotato via Flickr