DISCLAIMER: Views are the authors. They are personal opinions loosely based on facts.
Time and time again, we hear politicians talk about enacting stricter gun control laws in hopes to prevent the mass killings happening so frequently in the United States. But it’s not stricter gun control we need. It’s the enforcement of the laws that are already in place.
There are federal gun laws and state gun laws. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The Constitution is meant to lay out our rights. It is meant to be a guideline for laws. Federal law is meant to be the basis for state law. All state laws differ. All state gun laws must adhere to the Second Amendment.
Let’s use Massachusetts and New Hampshire as examples.
To own a gun in Massachusetts, a person must take a safety course, and get a license to buy and own firearms and ammunition. Then they must get another license to carry said gun on your person, another to carry it concealed, and another to possess magazines that hold 10-plus rounds (which have their own restrictions, like being “pre-ban” – they must be made before the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994). Massachusetts is a “may issue” state, which means issuing of concealed carry permits are at the discretion of the local police chief.
In New Hampshire, any person who is not federally prohibited from owning a firearm may buy, possess, and carry handguns and long arms (i.e. a rifle, or shotgun) in open site. There are no magazine capacity or firearms feature limits (besides those imposed federally by the National Firearms Act of 1986 and the Hughes Amendment). Different than Massachusetts, New Hampshire is a “shall issue” state when it comes to concealed carry permits. This means that if there is no legal reason for a single person not to be able to own a firearm, the chief of police is required to issue it to you.
Because these two states have significantly different gun laws, a gun owner in New Hampshire may not cross into Massachusetts while in possession of a firearm, as per federal law.
Enacting stricter gun control laws could potentially be a violation of the Second Amendment. A state could possibly revise their laws to make it more expensive to be able to purchase and legally own a gun, but that won’t stop people from getting them.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”
How many of the recent shootings have we heard about where the gunmen used legal weapons registered to them?
Enacting stricter gun control laws won’t make it harder to get a person’s hands on a gun. Enacting stricter gun control laws won’t stop the mass killings. A person who is determined to kill someone will find a way to regardless of the laws.
It’s not an issue of gun control. It’s an issue of the mentally unstable people using them to conduct vicious murders.
These people are not a reflection of gun owners across America.