From the horrific events of the Las Vegas shooting, comes the ever-growing talk of “gun control.” California Senator Dianne Feinstein is attempting to introduce yet another new bill that would limit an accessory you can put on your firearm. The NRA is actually backing this bill. Is it because they agree with it, or are they tired of being a scapegoat for the left-leaning politicians every time someone goes on a shooting rampage?

Something that has proven itself time and time again is gun control doesn’t work. Criminals will find ways to get guns, whether that is legally or illegally. After all, they’re criminals. Guns are inanimate objects that people who don’t want to see the realities of a situation blame. Guns have never killed anyone in the history of firearms (malfunctions aside). The thing that does the killing is the person pulling the trigger. If that person is dead set on killing one or one thousand people, they will do it and find a way to do it no matter how many laws you put in place to attempt to stop them. The only people that gun control actually affects are the people who try to do it legally.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. constitution is very clear when is says that “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Our Founding Fathers had just finished fighting a tyrannical government for our country and our freedoms. They knew, because of the history of most countries up to that point, we would probably have to do it again. Many Proponents of gun control say the second amendment wasn’t written with AR-15s or fully automatic weapons in mind. They often say this on Facebook, email, blogs or other forms of electronic devices that with their logic, wouldn’t be protected as free speech. The founding fathers also knew that fully automatic weapons would be a possibility. The Puckle gun was a tripod mounted, flintlock, with rotating barrels. It could fire nine rounds per minute to the three-five per minute of the fastest riflemen of the time. It was invented in 1718, 58 years before the declaration of independence was signed. That alone shows the Founding Fathers were anticipating the further development of automatic weapons.

Gun control advocates are also pushing for a form of gun registration to further track what guns are being bought and how many are bought. What exactly would this accomplish? It would be nearly impossible to enforce this due to private sales and if this were to be implemented, private sales would increase due to people not wanting their guns registered.

People like to bring up how other countries have banned firearms and their crime rate has decreased. According to Crimeresearch.org, after the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, violent crime actually increased, not decreased. But needless to say, this is America. We were built with guns and American citizens want to get and buy guns of all kinds. Banning guns would be against everything the Founding Fathers stood for. Not to mention with the amount of illegally obtained firearms out there being owned by criminals, I want to be able to defend myself with something of a similar style but legally.

Kyle Zimmerman is a staff photographer for Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]