The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

"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."

With me being an avid hunter and owner of a good number of firearms the right for me to keep and bear arms is very important to me. I feel that people who are for gun control are somewhat mislead about how taking guns away from citizens would help with the problems we have in this country today. It is proven that when citizens carry concealed murder rates and violent crime drops dramatically, for both men and women but especially for women. Every year guns are used for self-defense from 800,000 to 2.5 million times. States that enacted right-to-carry laws between 1977 and 1999, the rate of multiple victim shootings declined by 67% with deaths and injuries dropping by 75% and 81%. Also two of eight school shootings were brought to a stop by citizens with guns before the police arrived at the scene.  On an international scale Switzerland requires young males to have firearms in their homes as part of the country’s militia. Finland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world and also has a very low violent crime rate. Most of the gun control talk is directed toward assault rifles, fully automatic and semi-automatic weapons. However, in order to obtain a fully automatic weapon there is an extensive process that is required. With this process being required for the last eighty years. There are about 250,000 of these fully auto weapons in people’s hands and in this eighty year period there has not been a single time that a legally owned machine gun was used to commit a crime. This is the control that I do agree with to make sure that guns don’t end up in the wrong hands. I’m sure we’ve all seen the bumper stickers that say “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. With that being said there are reasonable measures to take without banning guns all together. With these facts available for anyone to see I hope that some people can come to an understanding about this incredibly controversial topic that could have a great deal of impact on our country in the future.