As Always,
Amanda
ENJOY!
Amanda Best
Professor Tara
Bowen
English 106 ~ 13
9 February 2013
Ensuring
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
Throughout
United States history, the Second Amendment has played a vital role in maintaining
the freedoms that the law abiding citizens of this country enjoy on a daily
basis. There are important reasons for the inclusion of the Second Amendment in
the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. Two reasons were to prevent
tyranny and to “provide for the common defence” (US Const. Preamble). We must
protect and preserve our Second Amendment Right to keep and bear arms, and do
as the members of the United States Armed Forces do, by swearing to “support
and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign
or domestic” (Military Oath), to ensure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness” (Declaration of Independence).
Nazi
Germany is a perfect example of where the Second Amendment was denied to the
people. Most history books falsely state that Hitler gained his political power
solely by overthrowing the German Government. They neglect to mention his
failed coup d’état in November 1923, subsequent imprisonment and realization
that Germany would have to “vote” him into political office. Only after his
appointment to Chancellor and the death of the German president, Paul von
Hindenburg, did he seized absolute political control in August 1934. In March
1938, the Nazis instituted the Nazi Weapons Law, which required a person to
obtain both a Waffenerwerbschein or “Weapons Acquisition Permit” and a Waffenschein
or “Weapons Permit” to legally own and carry a firearm (Halbrook 488).
Using his political power, on November 11, 1938, Hitler had the Waffengesetz
amended. Wilhelm Frick, the Reich Minister of the Interior, passed the Regulations
Against Jews' Possession of Weapons which literally stripped Germany Jewish
population of any rights pertaining to the ownership of firearms, “as well as
truncheons or stabbing weapons” (Frick §1). This amendment to the Waffengesetz
came just one day
after Kristallnacht, better known as the Night of the Broken Glass.
Halbrook stated that “without any ability to defend themselves, the Jewish
population could easily be sent to concentration camps for the Final Solution” (484).
History can tell you the rest of the story, but due to a lack of a viable
source to confirm the current status of the Nazis, aside from the “neo-Nazis”
of today, there are very few left, if any at all. This is a perfect example of
the importance of the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”
Thomas
Jefferson stated “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the
society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to
take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true
corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.” Jefferson’s statement that the
solution to “abuse of Constitutional power” was through “discretion by
education” can be interpreted to mean that gun control won’t solve the issues
relating to the misuse of firearms, it will only make it worse. Through
interpretation the solution to the misuse of firearms is the education of the
people. We are guaranteed many rights and freedoms. Among them are freedom of religion,
speech, press, and assembly (US
Const. amend. I), protection from the government to
provide room and board for soldiers at any given time (US Const. amend. III),
and protection from unlawful searches and seizures without probable cause, as well
as the right to secure ownership of their property and person (US Const. amend. IV).
The Second Amendment is vital to the protection of all of these rights. In
drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included a list of the
tyrannies committed by King George III. In the list, Jefferson twice cited the violation
of what was to become our Third Amendment Right.
According
the data gathered in 2011 by the FBI, a violent crime occurred every 26.2
seconds and a property crime transpired every 3.5 seconds. While a murder took
place every 36 minutes, a motor vehicle theft happened roughly every 44
seconds, while aggravated assault occurred once every 42 seconds (2011 Crime Clock Statistics). In 2011,
the FBI reported when compared to 2010, the “violent crime rate was 386.3 per
100,000 inhabitants, a decrease of 4.5 percent.” The FBI also reported the
murder rate for 2011 “was 4.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, a 1.5 percent decrease when
compared with the…previous year” (Table 1). Of the 12,664 murders in 2011, there
were 8,583 that were the result of a firearm, with handguns accounting for
6,220 of them. As alarming as this is, of the other 4,081 murders that
occurred, 728 of them were caused by a physical beating, yet only 679 murders
were the result of a rifle or shotgun. Knives, cutting instruments, and other
weapons account for 3,353 murders (Table 20). This figure is nearly 1,000 more
murders than that of rifles, shotguns, and firearms of unknown type. Firearms
of unknown type account for 1,684 murders which is ten less than that of knives
and cutting instruments.
Beccaria
has stated “laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither
inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the
assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than
prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence
than an armed one” (124). This is perhaps the most damning statement ever made
in support of the Second Amendment. To strip the populace of the Second
Amendment won’t prevent murders, unless they are also stripped of hammers, scissors,
knives, baseball bats, rocks, and screwdrivers, as well as their hands and
feet.
Works Cited
2011 Crime Clock Statistics.
Digital image. FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. Web. 08 Feb.
2013.
<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/11crimeclock.gif>.
Beccaria, Cesare. An Essay on Crimes and Punishments,
Translated from the Italian: With a Commentary, Attributed to Mons. De
Voltaire, Translated from the French. London: Printed for F. Newberry,
1775. 124-25. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The Thomas Jefferson
Foundation, Inc. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/laws-forbid-carrying-armsquotation>.
Frick, Wilhelm. "Nazi Weapons Law of November 11,
1938." Nazi Weapons Law of November 11, 1938. Jews for the
Preservation of Firearms Ownership, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2013.
<http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/NaziLawEnglish.htm>.
Halbrook,
Stephen P. "Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews." Arizona
Journal of International and Comparative Law 17.3 (2000): 484+. Stephen P.
Halbrook. Web. 06 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/article-nazilaw.pdf>.
Jefferson,
Thomas. "Quotations on Education." Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc., n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-education>.
"Military
Oath." Military Oath. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.
<http://militaryoath.us/>.
"Table 1." FBI. Federal Bureau of
Investigation, n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2013. <http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1>.
"Table 20." FBI. Federal Bureau of
Investigation, n.d. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.
<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-20>.
U.S. Constitution.
Amend. I
U.S. Constitution.
Amend. II
U.S. Constitution.
Amend. III
