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Second Amendment

Decent Essays

Repealing the second amendment would not make America safer because it does not penalize the criminals doing harm but the law abiding citizens exercising their right to self-defense. As stated in the book In Our Defense, Zangrilli argues "the ordinance penalizes the victim, not the criminal." An ordinance to prohibit handguns in Morton Grove, a small town in the United States. The point of the 2nd amendment was to be able to balance the power of the state and the power of the people. Around the late 18th century, mass production of firearms ensured that almost everyone could afford a rifle. This equality of arms between the people and the state allowed for individuals to assert their right to self-defense. The ability for the people to resist …show more content…

The second amendment has protected and shown that it is being used in cases of self-defense. In Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use revealed that United States civilians used guns in self-defense from crime at least 980,000 times per year. This survey shows how many citizens are using guns to defend themselves which would otherwise have been seriously harmed if the individuals did not have the firearm to defend themselves. A gun was used in 980,000 cases for self-protection. In Armed Resistance to Crime, a 1993 a nationwide survey conducted in about 5,000 homes found that over five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun “for self-protection or the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere.” This amounted to around 1,000,000 incidents per year. This excludes all “military service, police work, or work as a security guard." Citizens who had possession of a gun were able to defend themselves in such cases. This brings up the point that many people are exercising their second amendment right accordingly and using it in cases of self-defense. It has also been shown that criminals have avoided or retreated from civilians believed to have a …show more content…

In most cases even preventing the crime from taking place in the first place. While the second amendment protected these individuals, it has also harmed others; According to 2014 Crime in the United States, Expanded Homicide, roughly 14,000 murders committed in the United States during that year, of these, about 10,000, were committed with firearms. While repealing the second amendment would have decreased the deaths, the criminals who are doing harm, will still find a way to commit harm with or without a firearm. It would give the criminal the advantage of knowing that the citizens do not carry guns and would lead to the criminal to conduct the crime because the citizen cannot defend himself. The problem with repealing the second amendment is that criminals would still find a way to commit the crime if the second amendment gets repealed. As shown in Criminal Victimization 2014, roughly 5.9 million violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2014 these included assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders. 10% were perpetrated by offenders visibly armed with a gun. This goes to show that 10% of these cases did the criminals require the use of a firearm to commit these offenses. Meaning that the criminal committing the crimes would have committed the crime with or without the firearm when only 10% of the criminals needed a gun to go through with their crime. Taking away guns would

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