Controversy with the Second Amendment

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Controversy with the Second Amendment As law abiding American citizens, we have the right to bear arms as stated by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. This Amendment was enacted to ensure that our founding fathers and their descendants had the means to protect themselves, their family and their property. Although this is a legal right, there is heated controversy as to whether it is an ethical right. Typically, the gun debate inflates shortly after a mass shooting like the recent incidents in Aurora and Newtown. The argument is usually the same: one side insists that if officials eradicated guns, thus abolishing the Second Amendment, gun violence will somehow go away. Contrarily, the pro- gun side argues that this invades our rights as humans to protect ourselves. It seems ironic that a debate about the morality of building and owning bombs doesn’t flare when a mass bombing kills dozens, sometimes hundreds. For the argument of fairness, one could suggest that purchasing the materials to build a bomb of any kind could be punishable by law regardless of knowing the intent of the individual. Just as a law abiding American citizen seeking to purchase a gun might potentially be prosecuted if the Second Amendment is dropped from the Constitution. There is nothing in the constitution which states that Americans have the right to construct explosive devises, yet there is never an argument about the device itself. When a mass shooting occurs on U.S. soil, it is not the human committing the crime that is controversial, it is the device used to commit the crime. It is not the ethics of possessing a gun that is on trial, it is the person behind the

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