Review

Ap World

Mikey Hodge

One of the most highly debated amendments of the United States Constitution is the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment has been disputed for hundreds of years on exactly of its exact true meaning. The United States Constitution wrote the Second Amendment as “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." This Amendment has secured rights to bear arms, but is that really safe for this amendment to stay in place?

The Second Amendment is no longer a necessary means of self-preservation, as perhaps it might’ve been in a rural, post-colonial America. Absent the hazards of the late 18th Century, it’s strictly become a means of protecting the availability of a retail product. A hobby if that. Guns are a product that we don’t absolutely have to own in order for democracy and liberty to flourish and, in fact, owning a gun is statistically bad for you, that is unless you earn a living manufacturing and selling them.

Some people say that that the second amendment is “liberty.” The freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights and the further amendments beyond it generally augment the sustainability of the basic human rights and American democracy. Gun ownership, however, does not pertain to that what so ever at least in the modern world. Yes, we’re a nation founded upon freedom, but the freedom to buy a product, in this case firearms, no longer has any bearing on those values (if it even did in the first place). There aren’t amendments pertaining to the freedom to purchase any other product, yet our freedom to buy things is as healthy as ever.

Another argument pro-second amendment is that it protects hunting. First of all, there’s nothing in the Second about hunting, either for sport or for food or as a tradition. Secondly, why should a “sport” or tradition enjoy its own constitutional amendment? As for food you must agree that sustenance is a...