Weapons in America

In the USA, the right to carry arms is written in the Constitution. It comes from the time when the US had just achieved independence and there was no real army to defend the country. It strictly says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”. Since then, a majority of the population and organizations such as the NRA (National Rifles Association) have considered this as an inalienable right and have consequently been opposed to any kind of gun legislation. This is how America grew up with guns, and that’s why the gun culture is deeply rooted in the mentalities and so is the idea of self defense in case of danger. Indeed, weapons can have positive contribution to keep the order in society, in almost all the country, forces of law are equipped with weapons to hold the order. But weapons are power. During history of USA, weapons have not always been used wisely, for exemple during the period of racial segregation, slaves were dominated because of the power of weapons. They didn’t have guns to defend themselves so it’s the base of the beginning of segregation. In some states (for example in Colorado), you just need to be over 18 and have a clean criminal record and you don’t even have to register your gun with the administration. So it’s so easy to get weapons, it’s why the power of weapons can be a really bad utilisation if we take the exemple of the Columbine High School Massacre, 2 students rejected by their classmates, decided to take revenge and they killed 13 other students. They are just 2 students so it’s not normal for them to get weapons. Finally, the power of weapons is generally really bad as we can see with the racial segregation in USA for and old exemple or with different massacre as  the Columbine High School Massacre more recently.

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