Get a Knife; Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns Throughout the course of American history, the right

t to bear arms or the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution has been dened as both a symbolic gesture of civil liberties and a physical conict to preserve ones individualistic freedoms. While our founding fathers argued that the right to bear arms was a necessary barrier against the potential threat of monarchy rule in the United States (Patrick 91), modern issues, including organized crime, homicide, and the underlying threat of terrorism has led many anti-gun organizations to claim that the right to bear arms should be strictly limited or otherwise prohibited. Those who uphold the Second Amendment to the Constitution refutes any limitation to current gun laws out of fear that it would undermine the civil liberties of all citizens and increase the power of the government (May 260). Although highly debated, the correlation between the private ownership of rearms, and the increase of murders in the U.S., has created a compelling argument against public access to guns. In order to understand whether any alternative exists to the right to bear arms, it is necessary to examine the literary opinions of Molly Ivins, Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns, coupled with the social issues surrounding the ownership of rearms. Ivins, Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns reveals a clear position against anti-gun rhetoric, by cleverly asserting that violence in our society is a mainstay, with or without the presence of guns. By replacing guns with knives, Ivin demonstrates that this alternative is equally dangerous to public safety. While other weapons are available that can cause comparable injury, Ivin emphases that the public use of guns has an ability to increase the rate of homicide and crime in society. Claiming that, People are seldom killed, while cleaning their knives, Ivins appears to connotate that guns personify a human ability to premeditate murder and refute the true intentions of its handler. Therefore, the ability of society to attempt to control a device, which can murder instantaneously, is futile, and thus deserved to be regulated. The true intention of the Second Amendment was to secure the inalienable rights of both people and Free states in the New World, against monarchy rule (Patrick 92). In order to successfully ensure the civil liberties of all, the right to bear arms permitted communities to form militias, which could achieve security for both political sovereignty and the rights of individuals. Overtime, the Second Amendment has been manipulated from the original goal of maintaining civil liberties, to inadvertently enabling organized crime in both the United States, and its sphere of inuences around the world. Moreover, this has empowered black-market organizations, such as mobs, drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and according to Ivin, wacky religious cults. Therefore, the interpretation of the Second Amendment is believed by Ivin, to be a serious error, which many of our founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, would have rejected. According to Ivin, permitting militias to possess arms was intended solely for organizations, such as, the armed forces and the National Guard, in addition to local and federal law enforcement. Furthermore, Ivin states that, permitting unregulated citizens to have guns [has destroyed] the security of the Free State, which is counterintuitive to the rationale of our founding fathers original intent. While, guns serve a signicant purpose for establishing and maintaining social order, when introduced to untrained members of society, they can negatively perpetuate their purpose: a device created to kill. Therefore, guns lack the ability to co-exist in a civilized society, due to its ability to disrupt the very fabric of social order itself. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there are approximately 1.4 million active street gang members, who comprise more than 33,000 gangs across the United States. While gang activity is present throughout the U.S., major urban areas and states, including California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Illinois are

affected the most (National Gang Threat Assessment). Since rearms are readily available to the public, gang members have the ability to obtain and use them for their own purpose. Although current regulations to purchases rearms include an extensive background check, there are a number of weapons that are sold on the black-market (National Gang Threat Assessment). When coupled with the threat of terrorist cells looming throughout the U.S., increase regulation of rearms appears to be a denitive solution, but is often undermined by political pressure to maintain current regulations. Comparing England (a nation that outlawed rearms to the public) to the United States, Ivin stresses that the country has been able to maintain its social order with the absences of an armed populace. While people kill and a not gun, the argument of rearm ownership is relative to the fact that society is a collection of individuals who will inevitability disagree. Therefore, the likelihood of conicts amongst people that could results in emotionally driven or unintentional murders serves no warrants and merits rearm regulations. Furthermore, to suggest that the wellbeing of society is secure, while a small population of ill-content lawbreakers and anarchy seeking terrorist exist is an irrational consideration to public safety. Hence, a free state cannot survive under the present conditions. In addition, if other alternatives forms of protection such as knives or dogs were implemented by the public, as suggested by Ivin, the reason of murder would be more transparent and less difcult to assert in legal proceedings. The rate of accidental deaths or, crimes of passion, would signicantly decrease as Ivin humorously notes that committing murder with a knife is more methodical and physically time consuming, whereas death by rearm is often instantaneous, requiring little to no skill. In order for society to thrive in a civilized manner, it is best to resolve social issues with intellect rather than violence. One of the greatest aspects of being human is an innate ability to control ones aggression. If the availability to guns in society remains, the temperance of people to be civilized and behave rationally will continue to be compromised, thus creating a population of chaos. Not only do guns undermine the intentions of our founding fathers, they also cripple our behavior as humans, thus reducing people to beast. Works Cited National Gang Threat Assessment. Federal Bureau of Investigations, 2011. Web. 1 Apr. 2012. May, Ernest R. A Proud Nation. Evanston: McDougal, Little and Company, 1985. Patrick, John J., and Richard C. Remy. Civics for Americans. Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1991. COPYRIGHTED 2012. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.