this is the rough draft but finished draft of my report for school. please let me know what you think of it

Imagine waking up one morning and reading in paper that you no longer had rights you went to bed having. Imagine not being able to express your opinion, not being able to have freedom to choose a religion and not being able to defend your family.

Freedom is a precious commodity in today?s world, with the current issue of war looming over us. In this time we often look to our constitution and to what our founders wanted this country to become. Our founders prized freedom and wrote the constitution to tell people what rights we have as citizens of this so-called ?free? country. But we are not free. Everyday a freedom that we prize is one step closer to being taken away from us. Every time we turn around the government has put another restriction on one of the most important rights: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The right to keep and bear arms, better known as the 2nd amendment to the constitution, states ?A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed?.

Obviously, the founders thought that the 2nd amendment was an important factor in shaping our country. If they thought it wasn?t important then it wouldn?t be included in the Bill of Rights. George Mason once said, ?To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them?.

What Mr. Mason meant was that taking away guns from people makes them slaves to not only the government but to the criminals of this country.
In 1993 in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, after seeing his dog shot to death by intruders clad in camouflage, Sammy Weaver, 14, fired back in fear for his life. The 4?11 youngster was hit in the arm and then in the back as he turned to run home. He died instantly, killed by an agent of the federal government.

Cradling her 10 month old daughter in her arms, Vicki Weaver stood in the doorway of her home, mourning her slain son, unaware that she had only moments to live. In an instant a bullet tore through Vicki?s face, blew through her jaw and severed an artery. The Bullet was fired from 200 yards away by an agent of the federal government.

The ATF and FBI gave authorization to shoot anyone carrying a firearm well when swat teams saw 14 year old Sammy Weaver trying to defend himself they shot him in cold blood because the government didn?t like the beliefs of his parents. Not only did the ATF and FBI illegally enter the land of Randy Weaver but when they tried to bring charges against him they doctored the photos that they had obtained illegally. So all charges against Randy were dropped. It?s too bad that his wife, son, and dog had to die for the FBI.
6 months after the murder of Vicki and Sammy Weaver, the United States legislature was thinking about doing away with the ATF due to the embarrassment that occurred at Ruby Ridge. The ATF needed something big, so they set their sights on a new target: David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. The ATF got search warrants for automatic weapons rumored to belong to David Koresh and his followers. In the state of Texas there was a $200 tax on machineguns. The Branch Davidians failed to pay this tax so the ATF agents stormed the complex. They obtained their search warrant by saying that the members of this complex were suspects in a bank robbery. They sprang upon the members of the Branch Davidian with SWAT teams. It looked like a war scene with all of the SWAT team members running around with guns and tear gas. The ATF ended up setting fire to the complex where the Branch Davidians had lived. 80 men, women, and children were burned to death, and for what? For $200 not paid on a machinegun. I?m glad that 80 lives are worth only $200 to our government.

In New Jersey, a paraplegic laid in bed, at about 3:00 in the morning ATF agents broke into his house. Hearing this noise he reached for the only thing close enough, a percussion revolver. The ATF had obtained their search warrant under the false accusation that he had been the driver of a getaway vehicle in an armed robbery earlier in the day. When they reached him in bed, seeing him with a revolver, they shot him in the face, he died instantly. When asked about the shooting the head of the ATF just said it was a ?mistake?. How many mistakes must they make before they get it right?

From what I have just told you, it should be obvious that our government can?t make sound decisions when it comes to the use of firearms. They murdered innocent people and for what? Instead of getting the drug dealers, terrorists and murderers off of the streets they became murderers themselves, killing innocent people.

Some people say that guns kill people. Can a gun load itself? Can it pull it?s own trigger? No. Therefore, people kill people; a gun is not responsible for what the owner does. So why ban guns? Prosecute the murderers not the law-abiding gun owners. If you are worried about crime why not just ban cars. Statistics show that there are more car accidents every year than gun-related accidents. So why not put a ban on cars? If people want to ban guns then let?s reduce the crime rate more in cities, let?s ban cars.

After James Brady, (the press secretary for President Regan) was shot. He and his wife set out on a crusade to take away freedoms of Americans. They established the Handgun Control Inc. Paxton Quigley, a spokeswoman for the HCI, was on her way to her car after a rally held that night. Before she reached her car she was mugged and beaten by an armed man. After this incident Paxton could no longer support HCI and decided that if she had carried a gun with her then she possibly could have defend herself against her assailant. This made Paxton realize that the right to keep and bear arms is one of the most important rights we have.

Another celebrity who has constantly fought against the right to keep and bear arms is Rosie O?Donnell. Rosie has always fought against the 2nd amendment but what she failed to tell everyone is that her bodyguards that guard her children are armed. So Miss O?Donnell believes that armed people are good for her children but no one else deserves them? That?s definitely a case of hypocrisy. And I don?t know about you, but that makes me very upset, knowing that Miss O?Donnell doesn?t like guns but likes her children to be protected by guns.

Mortongrove, Illinois, the city council placed a ban on all firearms. Except every city council member was exempt from this law, they were allowed to have guns. They were allowed to protect themselves and their families but no one outside of the city council was allowed to. Another prime example of hypocrisy.
Kennesaw Georgia, The city council ordered that there be at least one gun per household and at least one member of the family be trained in firearms techniques. If you were a criminal which town would you go to rob? I think the answer is very obvious.
Opponents of the 2nd Amendment say that gun control deters criminals and controls crime, but studies show it doesn?t. A criminal will not obtain a gun legally. They are considered a criminal because they do things that are illegal. If a gun is purchased legally, they are tied to that gun and will be caught quickly. So gun control takes guns away from law-abiding citizens not the criminals.

Opponents also say that school violence is caused by gun availability. To this I say that no one noticed when Kip Kinkel wrote in the school newspaper he was going to shoot everyone. Eric Harris had a website saying the same thing. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris made a move for a class in which they used real guns to pretend to kill school athletes. Obviously, there was something wrong with the minds of these 3 young men, whether it was due to the environment they grew up in or due to the fact that they suffered from depression, it was not due to the fact that they could take a gun from a gun cabinet.

Helen Smith, a renowned psychologist said ?the availability-of-guns explanation assumes that otherwise harmless even normal kids become dangerous only in the presence of guns. The truth is that these kids are dangerous anyway?.

Miss Smith is telling us that reducing teen access to guns is like putting a band aid on a bear bite.
Some people say that the 2nd amendment refers only to the militia. But in the times of our founders the militia was made up of private citizens, therefore they wanted private citizens to have the right to keep and bear arms.

Some people would also like to blame gun manufacturers for the crimes committed with guns. A gun manufacturer has no control over what is done with the gun when it is sold to someone he/she has no way of knowing that someone is going to commit a crime with that gun, because most Americans who own guns want them to hunt with or to protect themselves and their families. This is like when people blamed the music that the Columbine shooters listened to on the deaths of their classmates, the singers of the music have no idea if someone is going to take what they say literally and kill themselves over lyrics. Just as gun manufacturers have no idea what is going to happen with the gun they produce.

Many gun opponents believe that gun availability contributes to crime and violence.

Oct 1991 Suzanna Gratia and her parents were at a restaurant in Texas suddenly gunfire erupted. By the time it ended Suzanna?s parents and 21 others were dead. Suzanna owned a gun but had left it in her car. She believes that if she would have been carrying that gun that day, some, if not all of those innocent people would be alive.

Prof. John R Lott Jr of the University of Chicago analyzed crime datat in all 3054 counties in the United States from 1977-1994. He found that guns play an important role in preventing and reducing crime and violence.

?Guns can prevent bad things from happening, they can make it easier for people, particularly those who are relatively weak physically to be able to defend themselves.? Professor Lott said.
He also found that vulnerable victims benefit from guns:

Bonnie Elmarsi was a battered-wife. She applied for a permit to buy a gun after numerous threats from her estranged husband saying that he was going to kill her. After receiving her permit she went to purchase a gun finding out that there is a 48 hour waiting period. But before the 48 hours were up Bonnie and her two sons were murdered by her husband. If she had been able to get a gun right away she could have lived and saved the lives of her two sons.

Banning guns would turn us into a society much like the one that our founders fought against. Without the right to keep and bear arms the government will begin to chip away at our rights, next they might take our right to freedom of speech, then our right, to freedom of religion and before we know it we will be just like the England that our founders fought and bled and died to get away from.