Guns Are Required to Maintain Freedom and Safe Society

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Disallowing the possession of firearms in any public space, including public colleges and universities, is a direct assault on the liberties granted to every American citizen. While private institutions, such as Occidental, are capable of establishing their own restrictions, the government cannot impose restrictions on Constitutional rights at public universities.

There is no debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In D.C. v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court determined that the second amendment guaranteed the individual’s right to bear arms. Consistent with the founding fathers’ intentions, the high court’s decision is irrefutable.

Some states have attempted to restrict the individual’s right by asserting that a “good cause” is necessary to carry a firearm. Imagine if a “good cause” were required to exercise the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, such as freedom of speech or religion.

“A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs,” U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote in his decision of Woollard v. Gallagher (2012).

Legg explains that proof of impending danger is not required to be permitted to carry a gun. If the right to bear arms is weakened, all other liberties will inevitably follow.

The Second Amendment is an insurance policy of the people against the federal government’s desire for power. The right of the people to keep and bear arms instills a sense of trust between the citizens and their government; it enforces the social contract. By allowing its citizens to bear arms, the government trusts that its citizens will not orchestrate a rebellion so long as it acts according to the will of the people and within the bounds of the Constitution.

America’s degradation is evident in the infiltrating bureaucracy: From surveillance to excessive welfare programs, the government’s oversight and coddling limit every citizen’s freedom and agency. Reminiscent of the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, the growth of the nanny state will, at best, produce a benevolent tyranny.

“[Tocqueville] suggested that a future American democracy might eventually combine an ‘orderly, gentle, peaceful slavery’ with the ‘external forms of freedom’ (as opposed to freedom itself),” wrote Chuck Chalberg in an article for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The only way to protect all of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution is by first protecting the individual’s right to bear arms.

Consequently, the argument that gun control will improve public safety is entirely irrelevant. The danger of an American citizen utilizing their right to bear arms to kill innocent civilians is far outweighed by the threat of despotism.

Even so, our society is safer when the right to bear arms is protected. No individual has the power to control another through force if everyone has a firearm.

The age-old argument stands true: laws do not apply to criminals. If only one individual, a criminal, possesses a firearm, then they have the power to use force against anyone who does not. If citizens are permitted to protect themselves by exercising their right to carry firearms, then the criminal cannot exercise control.

The same is true on the campuses of public colleges and universities. The right to carry a firearm would eliminate the unfair advantage granted to any violent attacker, instead providing would-be victims with the ability to defend themselves. For this very reason, 10 states are pushing forward legislation to remove restrictions; nine states already allow guns on campus.

Stripping citizens of their ability to protect themselves cannot make society safer. Restrictions on the right to bear arms only serve to leave law-abiding citizens vulnerable and defenseless against threats of violence and tyranny.

Dylan Bordonaro is a junior Politics major. He can be reached at bordonaro@oxy.edu or on Twitter @spospolmedia.

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you for sharing your opinion, but I would like to express to you that many of your contentions in this piece are very problematic. I’ll cut right to the chase. Your reasoning stating that the existence of a right is reason enough to limitlessly exercise that right fundamentally affirms almost all of the grand injustices against people.

    First and foremost, you need to broaden your thought and not invalidate the reality of many people. By saying “Imagine if a ‘good cause’ were required to exercise the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, such as freedom of speech or religion” you are blatantly rejecting the reality that this is a struggle many people experience. In history, there has been plenty of instances where people had to provide a “good cause” for exercising rights they were (or should have been) entitled to.
    -An easily understandable example is the fact that much of the civil rights movement was centered around BLACK PEOPLE having to provide good cause for the rights to VOTE, GET EDUCATION, NOT GET SHOT DOWN IN THE STREETS, etc. Just because public and private schools back then had the right to not admit black students, it is justified? It is okay? It is permissible? No.

    A more modern example: for many low income families nationwide (and many in your surrounding Pasadena and Highland Park area) tenant rights are often “legally” invalidated by the landlords and to this day they are still protesting and providing “good cause” to maintain their rights to their living spaces (which they are paying for and have a right to). But through things written into the law (such as the Ellis Act) landlords are allowed to evict low income families just to maximize their own economic status.

    Quite simply put, just because the right to own slaves (as property) existed means that it was completely okay to exercise that right to the fullest extent of what one pleased? Are you saying that the “right” to pay women less in the workforce is justified quite frankly JUST BECAUSE ONE CAN. Just imagine a world where people mindlessly carried out actions just because it was never written that they couldn’t. That would be an anarchists’ perfect disaster.

    At bottom, your argument here basically values an amendment, but doesn’t allow room for further amendments. If change in policy was needed before, it will be needed again. How can we aspire to a better society if you don’t allow room to even consider why the existing one is problematic.

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