GUN LAWS: Should we disarm citizens and disregard the amendment to bear arms - Research Paper Example

The number of guns registered to the civilians of United States is quite high, but this does not mean that it is necessary to repeal the second amendment. The second amendment should not be repealed because: guns help citizens defend themselves, guns help in decreasing crime rate, strict guns laws will give criminals a competitive edge and the government will try to repeal other significant parts of constitution. Body There are various reasons due to which the second amendment should not be repeal and citizens should be allowed to possess firearms.

One of the main reasons is that citizens of US use it to protect themselves against criminal activity. A very well recognized criminologist named Gary Kleck stated that victims that have already experienced crime conducted against them and if they owned a fire arm while the crime was taking place, the changes of property loss and harm to these victims is quite low as compared to those victims who did not bare at the time when the crime was occurring (Valdez, 2003, p.106). A second reason due to which gun laws should not be put into operation and 2nd amendment should not be repealed is that if citizens have arms and ammunition, the total crime rate declines. . minals are rational decision makers and before conducting any activity (crime) they weigh the benefits and costs that are associated with that decision (Vito, 2012, p.65). For example: A criminal may conduct a cost benefit analysis before committing a crime and if he/she realizes that the possible victim may be carrying a weapon and may use it to defend himself, the criminal might not conduct criminal activity as he might fear death caused due to use of arms by the citizens.

There should not be strict gun control laws because such laws will give criminals a competitive advantage to criminals over law abiding citizens. This is because such laws can only control guns that are licensed to the name of a law abiding citizen who has faced the difficulty of going through a proper procedure of obtain license to carry arms. On the other hand, the criminals do not get their guns registered and do not even obtain license for their weapons. If strict gun control laws are put into action, only a total of 270 million guns that are registered to the names of citizens will be controlled while huge number of guns that are owned by the criminals will continue to remain in operation while crimes are committed(Small arms survey, 2007, p.39). These laws are even violating the rule of equal treatment as by creating rigid gun control laws the government is working with a biased attitude against the law abiding citizens and is favoring the criminals in US.

If the policy makers are allowed to repeal the 2nd Amendment, they will follow the same procedure to repeal other pieces of legislation that protects the US citizens from the tyranny of the government. There are several pieces of constitution such as the 1st amendment which gives liberty of freedom of speech to the citizens and this