Parkland High School was a tragedy. Our country is still licking its wounds to the horrific acts of a mentally unstable individual. However, it seems that the response to this is a call for gun control.
Promoting gun control does not necessarily correlate to lesser violence. On the exact same day as the horrible mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, Min Yingjun went into a primary school in central China and stabbed and wounded 22 children. The violence is just as deadly, but the weapon used differed. Two years later, a Chinese terrorist group stabbed over 100 people, killing 29. Mass murders are committed by more than just guns. Gun control merely makes it harder for these attacks to be stopped. According to the United States Department of Defense, 2.5 million crimes are stopped in the United States as a result of a gun being used, whether it is actually shot or just shown at the scene of the incident.
Gun control is completely ineffective. In Mexico, for example, there are 160,000 gun related deaths each year and yet they have gun control that rivals that of France and other European countries. Why is the number so high with strict gun control? The cartels are terrorizing the people and the only thing stopping them are private citizens forming self defense militias with illegal guns, according to research done in a 2012 study done at Yale. Speaking of France, as mentioned earlier, they have absolutely fierce gun control laws in the country, but the ISIS attack on November 15th, 2015 was not stopped by the law. Finally, the city of Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws, on par with California, but yet a person is shot in the city on average every 2.8 hours according to Pew Research.
The Second Amendment was put in place not to allow anyone to buy a gun if they wanted to, but to protect the people. It is not for hunting or sport, but to ensure that if the government should ever become tyrannical, the people would be armed to overthrow it. America literally revolted against tyranny in order to become free of Britain’s choking grasp. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure that if anyone ever tries to do this to America again, they would be stopped. It is to protect the people against the evils of government.
Now headlines of tyranny and dictatorship may not be as common in the news as gun crime is. It seems to most people, that gun crimes are much more prevalent and a danger to America than tyranny is. While that may be true, few knew about the Third Reich’s rise to power before it was too late. Tyranny can develop anywhere, and we may be unable to even see it happening until it’s there. We are given the right to arm ourselves to ensure that if this hidden evil ever does come to fruition, we can be standing at the doorsteps locked and loaded and ready to fight back.
Look back at history. Every dictator, whether it be Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc. One of their first acts in command has been to outlaw guns from the people, or at least severely cripple the right to own a firearm. It is for the exact reason as to why we are given this right. The people are defenseless against an armed dictator. According to Staff Sergeant Sean Rowe of the US Army, “history shows that when the people are unarmed, the police and military controlled by the government can easily turn on the people. We can not be sitting duck, we must keep our God given right to bear arms.”
Look at the drug trade in the country today. Currently, on a federal level, Marijuana is illegal to use. However, there are millions of Americans illegally using it. How is this possible? The Black Market. Those who commit crimes using guns are already breaking the law and do not think twice about breaking it more than once. People who truly want firearms will get firearms one way or another. A perfect example of this is former State Senator Leland Yee (D-CA). He was arrested for illegally selling firearms to a radical Islamic terrorist group. Clearly, the Black Market is present in the country.
What occurred at Parkland was a tragedy. The nation is still mourning at the passing of the victims of this massacre. However, we need to be smart about how to solve this. Gun control is not the answer.