hen will Americans stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility for their actions? I don't think placing blame elsewhere will solve any of the problems we face today. In particular, I don't see violence in our classrooms as the fault of the gun, but rather as an undesirable byproduct of our societal leniency toward immoral behavior, the lack of parental control and discipline over their children, and the inability of today's children to develop and utilize self-control.
     Dr John Rosemond, a family psychologist from North Carolina, wrote in a column for The State newspaper, "No, the recent tragedy in Littleton is not symptomatic of lax gun control, but rather lax parents, lax schools, lax discipline, lax standards, lax expectations, and a culture which has become lax to the point of virtual indifference when it comes to morals, personal responsibility, and critical thinking." (Jasper)
    Furthermore, I don't see banning guns to be the answer. "Guns don't kill, people kill." And until we accept this simple truth, we will never get to the root of the problem. And if we continue to displace fault, I believe we will continue to experience similar tragic school shootings and remain victims of violent crimes.
    Before legislators introduce or enact more gun control provisions, I would like to remind our lawmakers of another very obvious fact: Criminals, by the nature of their trade and their intended aim neither follow nor value law; in fact, they break and circumvent the law. So, more controls intended to curb criminal activities will do nothing more than violate the rights of law-abiding citizens.
    An obvious, but overlooked aspect of disarming the lawful public would be their inability to protect themselves when confronted by the lawless--those with guns. Something not reported in the media is how guns in fact save lives and stop violent crimes. Australia recently forced gun owners to surrender their personal firearms. For 25 years, Australia had seen a decline in armed robberies, but since this new law was enacted, armed robberies have increased 44 percent.  Other interesting facts include, the country's homicide rate has gone up 3.2 percent, its assaults have risen 8.6 percent, and in the state of Victoria alone, homicides from firearms have gone up 300 percent. (Quinn)
    Armed with only common sense, it is obvious to me that criminals will less likely commit violent acts with or without guns, if they know there is a chance their intended victims will be tooting side arms. It should be understood that criminals normally target the weak, or as it is commonly referred to: "soft targets." Schools are soft targets because of the 1996 federal "Kohl Law," which restricts people from taking guns within 2,000 feet of a school; thus making schools "free murder zones." (Jasper) Anti-gun advocates who believe such a law will reduce gun violence in our schools are gravely mistaken. Do they actually believe a a criminal is going to follow that law. On the other hand, if citizens are permitted the right-to-carry, when criminals do follow through with violent acts on soft targets, armed citizens can take measures to protect themselves, as well as, people who otherwise would be targets for criminals.
    Law professor John R. Lott from the University of Chicago confirmed this through his research on gun violence.  Lott claimed that "concealed-handgun laws reduced death and injuries from mass public shootings to zero." Lott reported "For those states from which data are available before and after the passage of such laws, the mean per-capita death rate from mass shootings in those states plummeted by 69 percent." (Jasper) Even more important, States that have laws allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns, have a better chance of stopping, if not deterring gun violence than those States without this law. (Jasper)
    In fact, Lott detailed when concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, "murders fell by about 8 percent, rapes fell by 7 percent." And according to Lott, States that don't have the right-to-carry concealed gun provisions could have avoided 1,570 murders, 4,177 murders and over 60,000 aggravated assaults annually. (Jasper) The point here is clear, guns save lives and prevent violence.
    Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-gun, but I'm not anti-gun either. And I'm not, nor have I ever been an NRA advocate. But I don't see disarming the public as a way of stopping the violence. In fact, I see it as a contributing factor in the rise of violent acts, as apparent in Australia.
    I would like to once more emphasis my position on guns. I've never owned a gun, and I probably never will. The only time I've ever shot a gun was in Basic Training. However, my reluctance to own or use a gun doesn't give me the right to infringe upon someone else's right to have a gun; no matter the reason for their wanting one. And I'm sorry if some people disagree, but the Second Amendment of the US Constitution clearly gives Americans the right to own guns, and any abridge to that right would be unconstitutional.
    Several times in America's history the Supreme Court has had to rule on whether bearing arms was an individual's right or a collective right of a State. "Since 1857 the Supreme Court has treated the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right." (Fezell) Probably the most famous of these decisions was the Dred Scott Case (Scott v. Stanford). At the time, southern slave owners were not for freeing their slaves, let alone wanting to give them the right to bare arms, but in this case, the high court declared a person's skin color did not prohibit the individual's right to own and bear arms. (Fezell)
    Although the Supreme Court has held the Second Amendment as an individual's right, I would like to stress that this amendment isn't just another one of our rights. It is the bedrock to all our other rights. It is the very foundation that supports and secures all of our individual rights afforded to us by our Constitution and the blood that has been spilt to protect this time-honored document and our way of life. And to me, a pursuit to ban guns in the United States would be futile. But if such laws were enacted to take away or limit the Second Amendment, I see it as the beginning to the end of our other rights and freedoms. If the public allows the government to limit or remove the bedrock amendment, other individual rights will fall; such as freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; just to mention a few. 
    Therefore, I feel we should direct our attention and efforts to more meaningful, apposite and realistic solutions to the gun problem.  And though efforts by most anti-gun advocates are praiseworthy, I feel they are attacking the problem from the wrong angle. For instance, in today's age of medicine, a doctor doesn't just lop off a person's arm because he or she has a fractured radius, but rather a doctor sets the bone and puts the arm in a brace for support and to restrict movement so the bone can heal. But from what I can see, anti-gun advocates are using the lopping-off strategy by blaming guns for all the violence and by calling for the elimination of guns.
    The anti-gun advocates base their so-called solution on a belief if they can get rid of all the guns, the problem will go away. But they need to realize they'd be kidding themselves if they think they can actually get rid of all the guns. There is no doubt that they'll be unable to get all the criminal or illegal guns. And any attempt to disarm the public is simply playing into the hands of the criminal element in our society and into the clutches of a government wanting more control over its people. Banning guns will not stop the violence, it will only open the door to more violence and attacks on the general law-abiding citizen.