The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment is a tough one to wrap our modern brains around, only because it means that the actual law doe not allow people to own guns, despite this being a self-defense situation for those who do own guns. I don’t know much about guns, given that I live in California, but I would like to learn about them for the sake of knowing something about a gun and how it works. The Second Amendment reads “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.”

Young people cannot have guns, and occasionally mentally ill people have their guns taken away from them. I would never keep a gun in my house, period. I want to become a private investigator, sure. Handgun possession by private citizens is prohibited in Chicago, according to the above-cited website. The second amendment was written as a matter of English common law. In 1876, it was decided through United States vs. Cruikshank, that the right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution. As it stands, in the modern age, we have the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller, that the amendment guarantees an individual’s right to keep a gun at home for self-defense purposes.

The right to bear arms is a misunderstood amendment, which causes debate. The side effect of having easy access to weapons is the fact that we have school shootings conducted mostly by white males who have a gun they want to misuse. The painful aspect of this amendment is the emulation of gun violence. We Americans have a thing for violent movies featuring guns.

We relish the power, as well as gun culture, in particular, which is more prevalent in the Midwest. California is a not-open carry state but Texas is open-carry. I didn’t know this until somebody mentioned it, having recently moved to Texas. Guns are powerful objects that need to be treated gingerly and with respect. The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to bear arms if the state knows that is dangerous for a particular individual to do so. The right to bear arms is not necessarily a guarantee even if gun owners cite this as one.

Guns are not toys and need to be treated as a responsibility. Dangerous people own guns because it makes them feel powerful. The Second Amendment does apply to martial arts weapons, which in California, cannot be displayed. The right to bear arms is not a right, it is a responsibility, and many are not prepared to take this responsibility on. Gun ownership is not a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution because it needs to be more regulated. Guns are quite dangerous to be around anyway, and they do increase the possibility of harming yourself or someone else. There are many ways to have an accident because of guns. This is why having one is dangerous.

Gun culture says to use guns for hunting, or self-defense. We all have such a culture in the United States, but you can’t go a day without hearing about a mass shooting. This stuff can wear us, average citizens, down. It gets depressing to think about. Will we ever be free of violence of all kinds? The current administration doesn’t help. Guns cause a lot of harm to people. In the end, I prefer to stay away from them. My blog covers my psychokinesis in more detail. I wish we could let go of guns in general.

Works Cited

https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/2nd-amendment

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution