71Republic by Garrett Summers 6/14/2019
In an article published by The Morning Call, Marlin Reinhart argues that the Second Amendment no longer serves a national purpose. He claims gun violence has reached epidemic proportions; this is why we need to reconsider the necessity of the Second Amendment. However, this is only looking at one side of the coin.
A study published by the CDC found that firearms are used in at least as many defensive uses as criminal uses. In 2008, about 300,000 people committed crimes with firearms and anywhere from 500,000- 3,000,000 people used firearms defensively. This means firearms do at least as much good as harm in the United States, but likely much more good. A common argument that pro-Second Amendment advocates make is that without firearms, the law-abiding citizen leave themselves to the mercy of gun-wielding criminals. In my opinion, these statistics prove this. If law-abiding citizens did not have access to firearms in 2008, about 500,000 more crimes would’ve been committed. Without the guarantee to keep and bear arms, the US could very easily see a spike in the crime rate.
Mr. Reinhart goes on to say, “Nine of those amendments do stand alone as inalienable rights, but the Second Amendment is differentâ€. But he does say why it is different. He points out the “weird†wording of the amendment but does not elaborate further. He then says, “If the right to bear arms was intended to be timeless, why wasn’t it stated very simply in the First Amendment?†This is an apparent contradiction to his previous statement that the other nine are inalienable besides the Second Amendment. If the others are inalienable and timeless why aren’t they all in the First Amendment? It is because the numerical order of each amendment does not bear weight on the utility or the viability of amendment or the right protected in that amendment.
More:
https://71republic.com/2019/06/14/the-second-amendment-is-still-timeless/
