The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Rogue News staff or of Ashland High School.

Gun control is a dangerous choice of legislation for our country. This is because gun control in the United States is a method of undermining the U.S. Constitution and the ideas for which it stands. Gun control is an attempt to restrict or remove one of our unalienable rights: to keep and bear arms for the purpose of defending and protecting our freedoms from any entity endeavoring to take them away from us – whether the entity is foreign or domestic.

Gun control promotes terrible events to occur more often. This is due to the fact it usurps us, the common people, of the ability to defend ourselves from those seeking to harm us. One of our founding fathers, George Mason, stated, “. . . to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.” Gun control is part of the process of disarming the people. Thomas Jefferson said, “those who hammer their guns into plow shares will plow for those who do not.” In other words, Jefferson is stating, if people were to give up their arms, they no longer have any power to prevent those with arms from hurting or enslaving those without arms. Our firearms and, “. . . every other terrible implement of the soldier. . .” (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 1788), are necessary tools for us as a people to preserve our freedoms and our liberties. George Washington said, “firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people’s liberty’s teeth.”

The Obama Administration’s present efforts to increase gun control is based on the idea of keeping citizens of our country safer. While this appears to be a noble purpose, in actuality it is misleading and does quite the opposite. Remember, “those who trade liberty for security have neither,” as said by John Adams. Also, James Madison stated, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Another founding father, Samuel Adams, said, “the Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

You need not live in fear; for we, the people, are armed.