Copyright © 2000 by Ryan Heilig
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    I would love to open this paper with some witty little story or some way to involve the reader. In fact I did try to write one, but gun control is a touchy subject and any example of its inherent violence would be too graphic and inappropriate for this type of argument. Well maybe… try to imagine a little child playing in a park, having the time of her young life, running and jumping just fast enough to have fun but just slow enough not to have mom yell at her. She stands up on the edge of the sandbox in order to get good aim to jump on the sandcastle her brother is building when she feels a sting in her back. She suddenly gets dizzy and falls, her last thought in this world being “What's that red stuff on the sand?” the bullet was meant for the gang member across the park but it killed her just the same. Right about now I know that half of you are wondering how twisted my mind is and the other half are calling the thought police to turn in this sick boy, but what is more sick, that I can think of it or that it happens every single day?

    There are many views and/or excuses for allowing the public access to weapons of mass destruction, but I would like to focus on two, The 2nd amendment, A.K.A. the right to bear arms, and the sport of hunting.

    The second amendment was and still is translated, by all rational people if rationality isn't relative, as a right to form and uphold a militia for protection of the state against foreign invaders. This is a perfectly good rationalization for me. At the time of the writing, this amendment was put forth to allow citizens to legally hold guns under the concept that come time of war, they would fight to protect their farm land, i.e. the country. This had come to be very useful at times such as the Civil War when the volunteer army made up much, if not all, of the forces fighting. There were times all the way through the 1920’s when many ranchers, especially in Alaska needed firearms to protect their lands and property. Sate militias still exist and are thriving; they work under state direction to relieve issues that they are deemed necessary for. They are state controlled now, though, unlike the times when a militia was just a farmer and the surrounding neighbors, this is a highly organized process. They are not, however, these people out in places like Montana who see fit to call them selves a militia but have no state sanction or control. They are simply a bunch of “red-necks” who like to play with guns and are trying to make it legal. In my opinion and in the opinion of many historians and lawyers, the 2nd amendment does a sanction for forming state militias, not a right to personally own a gun.

    The second most popular argument is the sport of hunting. People have the right to enjoy themselves by any reasonable means, and if slaughtering innocent little animals is reasonable to some, I couldn't care less. I'm not going to start a semantics battle over Bambi and Thumper getting their brains blown out. I do, however, have a problem with how the “hunters” make their argument for their guns. They have hunting rifles witch is acceptable to me. These are generally low caliber, long range weapons that most people despite the drunken rumors operate with efficiency and skill. They also have a wide assortment of hand guns, this I have a slight problem with only because I wonder about the person that would rather kill an animal up close and messily rather than farther away and cleaner, not to mention with better accuracy. They have shot guns, which the only explanation I can think of for this choice in hunting weaponry is that it makes a rather impressive bang. A shot gun is very messy, inaccurate, and a clumsy weapon, its only purpose being to completely shred whatever it is that it hits. Nothing would be left of the animal to possibly eat or even mount on the wall, which are the two popular excuses for hunting. Lastly we come to the automatic rifles, now some one needs to explain this to me. Why would any one want to hunt with a weapon that isn't as accurate as its non automatic counterpart and not nearly as easy to keep clean and in good condition? The only thing I can think of is the firepower. Yes, there is nothing like having fifty bullets fly out of your gun in the time it takes you to inhale, not necessarily hitting anything in particular. I would like to close this subject with a quote from one of my favorite comedians, Richard Jenni, who said “If you need two hundred rounds at automatic speed to kill a deer, then maybe hunting is just not your sport.”
 
 

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