Second Amendment does not make sense in modern society

Our Bill of Rights protects some of the most basic and essential freedoms we need to live in a truly democratic society. Among them are the freedom of speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure and the freedom of religion. Each of these is necessary and vital if we want to claim that America is a free country.

The right to own a firearm, however, should not be among these. To be clear: I’m not proposing an outright nationwide ban on guns. I’m just saying that gun ownership shouldn’t have constitutional protection. The Second Amendment should not exist. It may have made sense at its time of writing, but it simply doesn’t now. Restrictions on gun purchase and use only serve to help the entire nation, by making sure that lethal weapons don’t make it into the wrong hands. But if restrictions are constantly hindered by questions of constitutionality, then the government can’t properly protect the people.

The other freedoms protected in the Constitution each benefit the American people as a whole. Free speech lets people express their thoughts and ideas without fear of persecution. The freedom from illegal search and seizure ensures people’s right to privacy. The right to own a gun doesn’t protect people – in fact, it does the opposite. Countries such as Japan and Australia that have very strict gun laws also have virtually no shooting deaths each year, and this isn’t very surprising. The less guns there are out there, the less likely it is people will die from gun violence. Guns don’t protect people; they kill people. They are brutal killing machines that have no place in a civil society.

Maybe an outright ban on guns is necessary. Maybe it’s not. We’ll never know if the government doesn’t have the freedom to explore different gun control options; we need to be able to know what works. If the government doesn’t have the ability to ban guns, then it will never know if such a ban would be effective. Guns are not sacred, and we should stop treating them as such.