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Second Amendment Persuasive Speech

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The Second Amendment as one of the ten Amendments known as the Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791. The amendment reads in full: “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 Amendment is obviously quite brief: and it is perhaps the very brevity of the statement that has led to so much confusion on its scope and intention. It is certainly a perverse fact that the very brevity of this Amendment has lent itself to literal volumes of interpretations and voluminous arguments to then oppose those interpretations for literally hundreds of years.
Over the course of history this succinct statement has been construed to both not guarantee …show more content…

The people which are referenced throughout the language of the Amendments would have been a collective as opposed to an actual individual right. In fact that collective right would have resided only with white, free, men, who were landholders as Alexander Keyssar wrote in The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States: “At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word "democracy" had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule. In practice, moreover, relatively few of the nation's inhabitants were able to participate in elections: among the excluded were most African Americans, Native Americans, women, men who had not attained their majority, and white males who did not own …show more content…

It is clear that at the time the Amendments words were written no one assumed that all people were actually equal and the generalized people were referenced as a collective for the good of the people who ran the show.
Yet those who advocate for free individual gun ownership point to the language of the Amendment and clearly define “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” portion to mean just that; no infringement of their individual right to own, use and carry arms.
Though many feel that this interpretation has given rise to the rights of the many to a collective sense of well-being and safety the quintessential; “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence (US 1776) being subjugated to the rights of the few. Because, though millions of Americans support free and unfettered access to any manner of gun, many millions more support increased safeguards and restrictions on weaponry.
In America today it is estimated that there is one gun for every single American yet roughly only a third of the populace owns a weapon. However, clearly the Second Amendment holds no ready relief for either advocating side, as the malleable quality of the language seems to ensure continued interpretational see-sawing far into the

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This touches on the second part of the amendment, that the people are to be armed, and their right to bear arms shall not be infringed. In fact, when putting the two parts together, this amendment almost outlines a responsibility of the American citizen. Because a well regulated militia is necessary for the security of this nation, and the rights of the people, their right to own weapons shall not be

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The thought process behind this is that it will help prevent shootings and keep criminals and mentally ill people from getting guns. Other people want to maintain this right and not be limited. They think that having guns will allow them to protect themselves from criminals and the rise of a tyrannical government. The Second Amendment was adopted into the United States Constitution on December 15, 1791, along with the other amendments in the Bill of

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In 1789, Congress adopted the Bill of Rights, which included the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment of the bill of rights stated,” 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.” During the time at which the second amendment was written in the constitution, war was on the rise with Great Britain. The only way to fight was with an army. As a result, the second amendment came into play.

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This source talks about the beginning and evolution of the second amendment. It talks about its original intentions, then goes on to explain how it is being interpreted today. The biggest debate is whether the amendment is the private right of citizens to bear arms, or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations. The purpose of this amendment was so that there would not have to be a need of a large military since it was believed that this would suppress the people. If there was a small invasion then the militia could handle it.

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The Second Amendment 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."

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Likewise, under the second amendment, we have the right to bear arms, but the government has the opportunity to define what bearing arms entails. An argument for widespread gun ownership, the NRA, and pro-gun people, tend to use the slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This may be true; the person pulling the trigger is the reason for the death. However, guns give incentive, along with an easier path towards killing another human being.

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The Second Amendment says, “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.” Gun rights has become the subject of intense political, social, and cultural battles for much of the last century. The pro-gun right side has asserted that the right to arms was absolute, and that any gun control laws infringed that right (Kopel, 2013). This right has been supported by the Supreme Court who has reinforced what has become the American consensus that the Second Amendment allows the right to keep and bear arms, especially for self-defense, and that it is a fundamental individual

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