Through the years there has been a great deal of heated debate over so-called gun-control legislation.  Not only are all arguments that favor gun control invalid on the basis of logic, fact and morality, but even those who are against gun control usually miss the real issue.  The issue is freedom.

A person has a right to own a gun for the same reason that he has a right to own anything; the corollary to this is that the government has no right to forbid anyone to own a gun, for the same reason that it has no right to forbid anyone to own any item.  Gun control, therefore, is a misnomer.  When politicians talk about gun control, they really are talking about people control.

Those who insisted on the second amendment to the Constitution—“THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS”—had important reasons for wanting this protection.  Having been tyrannized by the government of Great Britain, they saw the right to bear arms not only as a means of protecting one’s life and property from other citizens, but as a last resort of defense against an oppressive government.  That is precisely why it is in the best interest of today’s government to disarm the population.  It has cleverly masked this violation of a constitutional and natural right by appealing to the emotions of a frightened populace.

Owning guns has nothing to do with crime; if anything, it has to do with preventing crime.  Notwithstanding their continual efforts to build a case against gun ownership, government legislators have failed in their attempts to show that gun control lowers crime rates; in almost all cases, in fact, the results of tests and studies have shown quite the opposite to be true.

The old slogan which maintains that “IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE THEM,” is a reality.  Today, for example, it is illegal for most private citizens to carry concealed weapons.  Law-abiding people, therefore, do not carry them.  But you can be sure that criminals in every city in America are walking the streets carrying concealed weapons.  Gun-Control laws have the very real effect of giving criminals an advantage over non-criminals!

The view of government toward a citizen is that of a parent toward a child:  “You mustn’t carry guns, because you might accidentally hurt yourself or others.”  The assumption is that just because something can be used to harm someone, it will be used for that purpose.

Authorities estimated that approximately 9,000 people in the United States would be killed by handguns in 1979, which is an unfortunate fact of life.  Nevertheless, this is only a small percentage of the number of people killed each year by automobiles.  But the large number of automobile deaths is not sufficient cause to deny sensible, responsible individuals the use of automobiles.  The exact same logic applies to guns; just because some people use guns negligently or for criminal purposes is no reason to deny prudent, honest people the right to own them.

Guns are a form of self-defense, and by removing a tool of self-defense from a man, government not only violates his rights, but endangers his very life.  A gun is an individual’s ultimate means of preserving his freedom; it may well be that there is a definite connection between government’s stepped-up efforts toward gun control at a time when government itself is increasingly guilty of violating individual rights.

As Morgan Norval put it in an article in “Reason” magazine:  “’Order’ may be the excuse; ‘law’ may be the argument; ‘keeping someone else in his place’ may be the emotional rationale; ‘supporting the police’ may be the civic slogan; ‘ending violence’ may be the dream—but the nightmare of reality is total tyranny of the state.”

The right to bear arms should be defended to the bitter end.  Because in the bitter end, as the American Revolutionists discovered, it may very well get down to a matter of whether or not you do have arms.