by Ronald Reddout

Created on: April 12, 2009

The Second Amendment: Then and Now

The Second Amendment to our United States Constitution, as well as the second Right in the original 10 Bill of Rights, basically states the following. "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." Several states during the period of 1780 through 1842 reiterated this right in their own manner. Among those States were Massachusetts (1780), Pennsylvania (1790), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Connecticut (1818), and Rhode Island (1842). Each State reinforced the idea that the citizens or people of that particular State had the right to bear arms for their own common defense as well as for the defense of their state.

The "Militia" referred to in the Second Amendment were the minutemen or citizen soldiers of that era and the term "people" referred to the average men and women of that time, also. Both groups were invaluable at that time in the war for American independence against their British rulers. They shared a common desire to be free and to have their own form of government located on American soil.

Now fast forward almost 220 years into the future since we declared our independence from Great Britain. Our country now has laws limiting gun ownership, and there are people today who are still trying to have laws passed to limit that ownership even further. Admittedly, we now have Regular Armed Forces and, standing by in reserve, are the National Guard Units of each State. So the need for each citizen to be armed and ready to defend their own state, or the country as a whole, is no longer as vital as it once was.

Comparing then and now, the people fighting at that time for an independent America were mostly honest and did not resort to theft and murder as a means of making a living for themselves. So no one felt the need for passing laws to limit an individual's right to own a gun or a rifle. But now, the world in which we live has radically changed. Crime has been a topic of discussion for decades. It finally took the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and the resulting injuries sustained by some on his staff to make possible the passage of that first gun control law. And, even after that first attempt at controlling crime, figures for all areas of crime have fluctuated up and down over the passing years.

To be quite honest, the only ones who benefit from these gun control laws are the criminals themselves. You see, for most criminals, these gun control laws are not something to be obeyed as an honest citizen would obey them. For the criminal who wants, or needs, a gun, a rifle, or any other type of weapon in order to commit a crime, all that is required is breaking into some gun store or maybe an armory somewhere, and that criminal has all the weapons that are needed for whatever crime they want to commit.

So, in conclusion, I would answer yes. We are losing our Second Amendment rights. We are losing them to the criminals that permeate our society.

*NOTE: Information stated or referred to in the 1st paragraph of this article was drawn from Pages 2 and 3 of the following Website: http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/2amteach/SOURCES.HTM# TOC1

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