Every morning when I arrive at work, I eagerly anticipate an email from one of my colleagues, who always shares fascinating articles with me. Recently, there has been a recurring theme in the articles she has been sending – the Second Amendment. Specifically, an uptick in new, highly restrictive gun laws implemented by states like Massachusetts and Oregon. These laws are being referred to as “the nation’s most extreme.” I am deeply concerned by the trend of States unashamedly targeting firearms and, consequently, the Second Amendment. We are seeing unprecedented violations of the American right to keep and bear arms. And it has to stop.
Amidst articles on restrictive gun laws were two pieces about homeowners who thwarted burglaries by using firearms to defend themselves. Who knows what might have happened if the homeowners were unarmed, but I cannot imagine it would have been a favorable outcome. One of the homeowners was a woman, and as a young woman myself, I could completely relate to her situation. Every person has an unalienable right to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their personal property— I firmly believe that! Just knowing you have the capacity to protect yourself can make all the difference. But it is us—the peaceable Americans—that the States are trying to leave unprotected. States are making policies that punish law-abiding gun owners for the sins and evil acts of criminals. These new laws will leave peaceable Americans defenseless against the very people States allege they seek to stop.
The Founding Fathers cherished the right of an individual to protect themselves so profoundly that they enshrined it in the foundational documents of our nation. But these States are actively putting in jeopardy the rights and individuals that our Founding Fathers sought to protect. Their cunning actions are necessary because they are ignoring the reaffirmation of these rights by the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bruen, which held that the Second Amendment is not a “second class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules.” The Second Amendment is a right on an equal level with every other provision in our Constitution. It deserves to be protected and cannot be violated. But much like the cat that will never stop trying to reach into the fishbowl, State gun laws are still creatively seeking to go after the Second Amendment.
As someone who originally comes from California (don’t worry, I didn’t bring the bad politics with me to Colorado), I have heard that guns are evil, they need to be banned, and they are the reason for violence and death in this country. But I never believed that narrative. Never have and never will. Why? Because a gun is a tool, just like a knife or a hammer or a screwdriver. A gun lying on the counter is not going to decide on its own to cause violence and harm. No, a choice had to be made. A choice made by an individual to pick up that gun and use it for evil. Or alternatively, a choice to use that gun to protect themselves or their loved ones. The problem is gun laws are beginning to remove the choice to protect yourself with a firearm from peaceable Americans. Restrictive gun laws leave individuals at the mercy of a criminal. They leave homeowners like the ones I mentioned earlier without a means of self-defense. The thought of that terrifies me. Don’t punish peaceable Americans for the choices that criminals perpetrate. Criminals should be held utterly responsible for their actions, but let’s stop acting like it is the choice of the gun and not human beings on whether violence is carried out.