Issue Position: The Second Amendment

Issue Position

The Second Amendment guarantees Americans the means to protect themselves and their freedom. This right is so basic to human existence and so fundamental to the preservation of all other natural rights that it is beyond the legitimate powers of a government to infringe, and the Second Amendment recognizes this fact.

As a practical matter, weapons in the hands of honest and law-abiding citizens makes us all safer. Simply knowing that there are responsible citizens among us capable of responding with force is itself a powerful deterrent to crime.

Gun control laws are extremely effective at disarming law-abiding citizens, but they are extremely ineffective at disarming criminals and madmen. They produce a society in which decent citizens are defenseless and criminals are as well armed as ever. Gun violence is made worse by gun control laws that disarm law-abiding citizens, because in a society where the law-abiding are disarmed, the gunman is king.

Gun violence is most effectively controlled when good people can defend themselves, when violent predators are incarcerated and when madmen are confined and treated.

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