USEFULNESS OF THE SECOND AMENDAMENT

by Mattia Laudi

The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is probably one of the

most discussed since it has been adopted. In fact, it treats a really important matter

Sawed-off shotgun

such as the right to posses weapons. This 

amendment states that "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.

This Amendament was adopted December 15, 

1791 with the rest of the Bill of Rights."

Currently this Amendment can be seen with two different interpretations: the first   

one is that this amendment ensure the possibility for the individuals to bear firearms;  

the second one is that the amendment was meant to ensure the States the right to

create a militia.

Second Amendament

Now, if we decide to consider the first interpretation, giving the right 

to anyone to bear arms, we risk to create a gun-society; while the 

second one seems to be less dangerous, giving the right to the State 

to decide about his own militia.

Both ways to read this sentence are true and every State can treat this 

topic differently since the Supreme Court didn’t incorporate this 

amendment to apply to every state.

Recently the Supreme Court is permitting the United States to apply 

a stamp tax to sawed-off shotguns, if it can’t contribute to create a 

militia it can be regulated by law.

This is already a good restriction, but the danger still remains because it can be

created by other firearms.

This is said to be a law create to protect citizen’s life, the border of a State and the

United States themselves or for recreational purposes such as hunting.

Seeing the weapons just as a tool to protect society and have fun is just a side of the

coin. On the other side there is the bad side, that sometimes people don’t see, like the

possibility to kill and wound people or utilize a firearm for a robbery. In fact, the right

to carry and bear weapons for personal defense legally denies the right to attack

people, but there’s always a component of free-will that cannot be controlled by the

 

laws.

The other consideration that we should do is that without a 

right to carry weapons for defense purposes, we don’t even 

have the need to protect ourselves from them, because there is 

none but a few, such as arms carried by retired policemen

and soldiers.

In this upcomig elections the Second Amendament has been treated with a particular

attention from the possible candidate for the Republican Party, Ron Paul, that says that

“the inalienable right to keep and bear arms is not only essential to a free society, but it

is the guardian of every other right.”

This is an important statement that shows how weapons are made part of our society

from its own roots.

This is an unambiguous explenation of how, in 2012, governments let us believe that

we  are unable to keep alive the order of a Nation relying just on the police forces. We

are  living in a democracy, but we have to control the society where we live in with

violence; these two ideas seem to be contradictory.