by Keith Redfern

Created on: April 16, 2009

First of all I must state that I am not American, and therefore do not feel bound by a constitution which is now so complex and contains so many amendments that it can probably be cited as an excuse for doing any number of bizarre things.

We need to tackle this question objectively. Why should one want to bear arms? To kill. That is the only possible reason. If you wish to bear arms you are prepared to kill.

What do you wish to kill? Animals or people? If animals, then I have no objection providing it is within a state controlled scheme of hunting and wild life control, as in France for example. And it goes without saying, in order to own the gun, one must need a licence which should not be easy to obtain.

If it is people you are prepared to kill, who has the right to kill a person? An individual, a law enforcement officer, a soldier, a state? No one has the right to kill any person. It is fundamental to the laws of man, whether one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or of any other religion or none. No-one has the right to take a life - under any circumstances.

Look at it another way.

Why do we buy things? To use them.

Why have I bought a car? Because I need it to get from A to B as I live in a rural area with no public transport.

Why would anyone buy a book? To read it.

Why would anyone buy a gun? To use - or at least to be prepared to use it.

What fundamentally causes the death of all those killed by guns? Is it the guns themselves, or the people who pull the trigger? The answer is obvious.

So, if we accept that the killing of people is unacceptable and wrong, and that the cause of deaths by gunfire is the person holding the gun, how can people have a fundamental right to bear arms they are prepared to use in this way?

How do we try to reduce the number of deaths by gunfire? By ensuring it is acceptable to bear arms? Harldy.

So how do we do that? We introduce some level of control.

Unfortunately, in the United States, society has grown to accept completely the use of arms to defend oneself in any situation. It is as if the wild west still exists, and I think in the mind of some it still does. The same fundamental ethics seem to pertain for a lot of people - everyone carries a gun and is prepared to use it if ever they are provoked.

This situation has not developed in other (so-called) developed countries because their history is different and has developed more slowly. In the UK, where the police are now armed under some circumstances, no member of a police force likes to bear arms. They know what can happen as a result and they therefore try to use other means to deal with a situation if at all possible.

In the USA, and some other countries, the police are always armed, and are prepared to use those arms whenever the situation demands it. This is an entirely different ethic, and it ensures that criminals will also bear arms, and if criminals bear arms, then ordinary people will say they need to as well to protect themselves and their family. This is distorted logic and it is self perpetuating.

If the right to bear arms was taken out of the American Constitution it would cause an outcry, because American society is such that with so many guns in circulation people feel a need to own one in order to counter other people's. But there is no other way to counter the number of school massacres and armed killings. Without gun control the level of murders will never fall.

No-one has a fundamental right to bear arms, just as no-one has a fundamental right to kill people.

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