The second amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows; 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. The fear that this amendment will be eradicated is brought up often by many gun owners and manufacturers all across the nation when you start to talk about the dreaded “gun control” issue. While the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby is there to represent gun owners and manufacturers, I feel that they often take the right to bear arms way too far. For example, why did the gun lobby set out to weaken the Brady Bill so that it wold eventually expire? The Brady Bill signed into law back on November 30, 1993 initially required that someone wait up to five days for a background check to be done before they could purchase a firearm. What’s so wrong with having someone wait five days? In 1998, when the Brady Bill expired thanks to it’s weakening; it was replaced with a National Instant Criminal Background Check System.This is what the Brady Campaign (www.bradycampaign.org) had to say about the instant background check system; “The ‘instant check’ system is not ready. By necessity, an ‘instant check’ system relies upon information that is complete and instantly accessible. But many criminal records are not complete, not computerized, or not currently accessible by a national ‘instant check system.”’ Even more enlightening and important was that I was able to learn about something called a “cooling off period.” The five days can actually act as time for a person whose intent to buy a weapon is to either commit murder or suicide, to “cool off” and think their situation over.

Why in this country should there be people in such a rush to acquire a weapon? If they intend to possess a firearm for legal purposes and have a clean background, they should be content knowing that they will be able to make their purchase in the matter of a few days. If you need your firearm by a certain date then plan ahead. The Brady Bill in it’s original intended form would be able to spot many undesirables stopping them from purchasing guns and save many lives in the process. In my opinion the price of having a legit sale wait up to five days versus saving lives is nominal. Within the first six years of the law’s enactment 600,000 felons were stopped from purchasing guns from licensed gun dealers. While the gun lobby says that criminals purchase guns illegally off of the streets, many do try to buy them from legal gun retailers. If gun enthusiasts and gun makers would have a little more patience and realize that they have a responsibility to ensuring a safer society for everyone, themselves included, we would be better off. It’s comparable to a person who now has to go to the airport an hour earlier to have themselves and their belongings checked before a flight. Yes it’s an annoyance, but just think about everyone else’s safety in the airport and on the flight, and clearly you would realize that the security measures were necessary. Frankly, what this comes down to is money. The gun lobby is afraid of losing sales due to waiting periods and other measures. The question I ask is, what price are we paying as a nation for their high sales figures?

This leads me to another issue that I feel the gun lobby has unrealistically supported and has gone too far on. Why must we as a nation allow the average citizen to possess an assault weapon? One of the worst things to happen was for the Bush administration to allow the Federal Assault Weapons Ban to expire or “sunset” in 2004. As far as i’m concerned there is absolutely no need for the average citizen to need an automatic or semi-automatic assault weapon. The intent of these assault weapons is for one thing, and one thing only, and that is to harm or kill multiple persons. The right to bear arms comes down to two things as far as i’m concerned; either you use a firearm to go hunting or you keep one for protection. There is no need to have an assault weapon for either situation unless you were being attacked by a small army armed to the teeth! This is why I found this statement by Chris Cox of the NRA (http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/guncontrol/a/assaultban.htm) back in 2004 ridiculous. Mr. Cox said, “The debate is not really about so-called ‘assault weapons.’ It’s about banning guns. It’s about gun prohibitionists searching for the easiest target of opportunity.”

As I’ve mentioned there is a second amendment that protects the legitimate and lawful possession of a firearm, but I’d also like to draw something else to Mr. Cox’s attention. Just as recent as a few days ago I read a story on the Gothamist blog (http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/11/15/machine_gunner.php) in which I could not help but comment on. The blog posting begins with “Why was a 33 year old man running around the streets of Jamaica, Queens, firing a machine gun on Monday? To settle a beef with his sister’s ex of course. Patrick Ledger was unable to find his sister’s ex, though, so he started firing the weapon around 179th Street and Hillside Avenue.” The posting continues on with “The NYPD says that they haven’t seen that kind of semi-automatic gun in a decade (Commissioner Ray Kelly said ’street sweeper’ type weapons were more common in the mid 1990s).” This happened in a state where laws against the possession of assault weapons are still on the books mind you. But as long as there is another state allowing for the sale of assault weapons everyone is in danger as the assualt weapons can be smuggled into states that do not sell them.

This finally brings me to the last issue I wanted to raise. This is the issue of illegal gun running and it’s consequences especially here in New York. While NY has strict gun laws, we are hampered by the trafficking of illegal guns from the South along the I-95 or “Iron Pipeline”. These guns often end up being used in crimes. This another issue in which the gun lobby has failed to accept responsibility. Currently, in New York City there is a case (New York v. Beretta) which alledges that gun manufacturers know that their guns are being illegally trafficked and are capable of stopping sales of their product to criminals. It seems as if there is serious merit to this case. Yet, we have GOP members of the 109th congress who have sought to protect the gun lobby from liability.

In the end it must be clear that the government whether it be federal or state has no intent on taking away the right to bear arms legally. Yet, just like the first amendment and it’s application to screaming “fire” in a crowded theater (it’s not protected speech thank goodness), there is a time when the second amendment can be abused or interpreted the wrong way.