Americans are faced with an ever growing problem of violence. Our streets have become a battleground where the elderly are beaten for their social security checks, where terrified women are viciously attacked and raped, where teenage gangsters shoot it out for a patch of turf to sell their illegal drugs, and where innocent children are caught daily in the crossfire of drive by shootings. We cannot ignore the damage that these criminals are doing to our society, and we must take actions to stop these horrors. However, the effort by some misguided individuals to eliminate the legal ownership of firearms does not address the real problem at hand, and simply disarms the innocent law abiding citizens who are most in need of a form of self-defense. To fully understand the reasons behind the gun control efforts, we must look at the history of our country, and the role firearms have played in it. The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States makes firearm ownership legal in this count. There were good reasons for this freedom, reasons which persist today. Firearms in the new world were used initially for hunting, and occasionally for self-defense. Over the years, some of the reasons for owning firearms have changed. As our country grew into astrong nation, we expanded westward, exploring the wilderness, and building new towns on thefrontier. Typically, these new towns were far away from the centers of civilization, and the only law they had was dispensed by townsfolk through the barrel of a gun. Crime existed, but could beminimized when the townspeople fought back against the criminals. Eventually, these organizedtownspeople developed police forces as their towns grew in size. Fewer people carried theirfirearms on the street, but the firearms were always there, ready to be used in self-defense. It was after the Civil War that the first gun control advocates came into existence. These weresouthern leaders who were afraid that the newly freed black slaves would assert their newfound political rights, and these leaders wanted to make it easier to oppress the free blacks. This oppression was accomplished by passing laws making it illegal in many places for black people to own firearms. With that effort, they assured themselves that the black population would be subject to their control, and would not have the ability to fight back. At the same time, the people who were most intent on denying black people their basic rights walked around with their firearms, making it impossible to resist their efforts. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one, and these armed men saw their plans work completely Today's gun control activists are a slightly different breed. They claim that gun violence in this country has gotten to a point where something must be done to stop it. They would like to see criminals disarmed, and they want the random violence to stop. I agree with their sentiments. However, they are going about it in the wrong way. While claiming that they want to take guns out of the hands of criminals, they work to pass legislation that would take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens instead. For this reason the efforts at gun control do not address the real problem of crime. The simple definition of a criminal is someone who does not obey the law. The simple definition of a law abiding citizen is someone who does obey the law. Therefore, if we pass laws restrictingownership of firearms, which category of people does it affect? The simple answer is that gun control laws affect law abiding citizens only. By their very nature, the criminals will continue to violate these new laws, they will continue to carry their firearms, and they will find their efforts at crime much easier when they know that their victims will be unarmed. The situation is similar to that of the disarmed blacks a century ago. Innocent people are turned into victims when new laws make it impossible for them to fight back. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one.

Criminals will always find ways to get guns. In this country we have criminalized the use, possession, sale, and transportation of many kinds of narcotics, but it's still easy for someone to take a ride and purchase the drugs of their choice at street conner vendors. Firearms and ammunition would be just as easy for these black market entrepreneurs to deliver to their customers. Today, criminals often carry illegal weapons, including sawed-off shotguns, machine guns, and homemade zip guns, clearly showing their disregard for the current laws which make these items illegal. And when they are caught, the courts regularly dismiss these lesser weapons charges when prosecuting for the more serious charges that are being committed with the weapons.The gun control advocates have argued their case by demonizing the gun itself, rather thanaddressing the people who commit violent crimes. This is the main fallacy in their argument. They slyly attempt to claim that possession of a gun turns average citizens into bloodthirsty lunatics. This theory falls apart under close scrutiny. If legal possession of a firearm caused this sort of attitude, then why are crime rates highest in areas such as Washington, D.C. and New York City which have strict gun control laws? And why are crime rates dropping in states such as Florida where private ownership of firearms is encouraged? Simply stated, legal ownership of a gun does not cause crimeThe most recent efforts of the gun control lobby has been to claim that certain types of guns andammunition are inherently evil. They assign emotional catch phrases such as "assault weapons" and "cop killer bullets" to broad categories of firearms and ammunition in the hopes that people will believe that some guns have an evil nature. Most people who are unfamiliar with firearms do not fully understand what these phrases mean, and they accept the terms being used without question. What people do not often understand is that the term "assault weapon" has been defined to include all semi- automatic rifles, and "cop killer" has been defined to include any bullet that can penetrate type two body armor. It comes as a surprise to most people that a large number of simple hunting rifles can do both. Does ownership of one of these weapons cause people to become mass murderers? It does not, and we must not fall into the trap of blaming the sword for the hand that wields it. So I've shown that the act of making it illegal to own firearms does little to prevent criminals fromgetting guns. These laws only restrict people who respect the law itself, the people who would only use firearms for legal purposes anyway. And when we give people the right to defend themselves, we find that criminals start looking for other victims out of fear that they will become the victims themselves. We must work to reduce crime in America, but we should look at the problem realistically, and develop plans that would be effective. It is obvious that gun control laws are neither realistic, nor effective in reducing crime. Therefore, we must direct our efforts toward controlling crime, not controlling legal ownership of firearms.