Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin issued a statement that argued cities should be able to ban guns, and that denying cities that ability would result in increased crime. This statement, aside from being inaccurate, fails to take into account that gun ownership is a right, and the rights of law abiding citizens cannot be denied just because it is politically expedient to do so. Allow me to explain further:
Gun ownership is a right, not a privilege
First and foremost, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s statement assumes that it is OK to deny millions of law abiding people the basic, constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, just because some city officials (incorrectly) believe it will help prevent crime. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t allow cities to conduct warantless searches just because it might result in more drugs being taken off the street. We don’t allow cities to hold citizens in jail indefinitely, without a trial, just because it might prevent crime. Nor do we allow cities to decide that free speech can banned in the name of expediency. Each of those rights, along with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, is a right guaranteed by the constitution, which is binding upon all levels of government. To make things even worse, trying to take away gun rights can end up hurting our other rights too.
Banning guns won’t stop criminals
As I’ve previously stated at length, criminals ignore gun control laws. First of all, many of the criminals who misuse guns are already convicted felons who could not lawfully possess a gun, but still chose to buy a gun on the black market. Gun control laws won’t stop these criminals, since black market gun dealers certainly don’t perform background checks. Nor will the gun control laws deter a criminal who is not already deterred by the laws against murder, rape, robbery, etc., since someone facing life in prison won’t care about some relatively minor gun possession charge. Instead, gun control only disarms the law abiding citizens, who wouldn’t have misused a gun in the first place.
I got a DUI in 1994 as a felony and lost my rights to bear arms.I would like to have them back and dont know how to go about it.I have no violent crimes.thank you Ray
Raymond,
While I don't give legal advice on this website, there does seem to be a lively discussion about gun rights for convicted felons taking place at the bottom of this page: http://www.learnaboutguns.com/2008/07/28/gun-righ…
Those individuals and their comments may be of some help to you.
Gun ownership is a right, not a privilege? That is [unnecessary profanity redacted]!
Gun ownership is a privilege, not a right. Privileges can be taken a way, rights cant. A rights not a privilege, a right is a right now give Raymond back his guns.
Gun ownership Right or Privilege?
Some people
say that gun ownership is a privilege because less guns means less crime. Other
people says that gun ownership is a right because the US constitution says it
is a right. Both arguments are incorrect.
Crimes are
created by people, not guns. Specifically certain types of people, that political
correctness forbids us from talking about, and the huge discrepancies between
the violent crime statistics in USA, Mexico and Iceland are not because of
differences in the respective gun laws.
Rights steam
from God and not a creation of man. I know it is in vogue to deny God, but in
order to have any sense of morality at all beyond “survival of the fittest” we
need to refer to a transcendental force.
I will take
it as a given that Rights exist, in the form of natural rights and that these
includes the Right to life, liberty and property.
But that
does not answer the question of whether owning a gun is a right.
A gun is a
tool, it is a tool like a car or an airconditioner is a tool. And as rights are
absolute by definition, the question really is, “is it a right to have
unlimited access to every available tool, or does an authority such as a state
have the right to demand that some tools must only be made available to people
who have shown a sufficient level of proficiency with them?
How many
are opposed to the notion that one needs a licence before one is allowed to
operate a motor vehicle? Like with guns, cars are very useful but also very
dangerous if handled improperly. And what about sarin gas? Do we have the right
to use that against trespassers?
It goes
from the radical to the absurd to call gun ownership a right when we look at it
this way.
Do we have
the right to defend ourselves? Certainly, but that does not mean we have the
right to use every available tool to do so. The rule for self-defence is always
“minimal necessary force” Sometimes that does indeed mean lethal force, but a
gun, which is a tool used to kill, should only ever be used by people who have
had sufficient training to use it proficiently.
Thus like a
car and most other form of powerful tools we have available, having them is a
PRIVLIGE