Rand Paul: Congress Has a Duty to Preserve the 2nd Amendment

From his latest Washington Times column:

Restricting Americans' ability to purchase firearms readily and freely will do nothing to stop national tragedies such as those that happened in Newtown, Conn., and in Aurora, Colo. It will do much to give criminals and potential killers an unfair advantage by hampering law-abiding citizens' ability to defend themselves and their families.

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Gun control itself is unreasonable.Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the entire country — and one of the worst gun-crime rates, with more than 500 homicides last year. Compare this to Virginia, where in the past six years, gun sales went up by 73 percent, while violent gun crime fell 24 percent. The types of firearms and clips the left is currently so intent on banning are used in fewer than 2 percent of gun crimes — and how many of those crimes involve registered weapons? Few to none.

For every national tragedy that happens, there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Americans preventing similar killings from happening, thanks to the use of personal firearms. Last June, for example, a 14-year-old Phoenix boy shot an armed intruder who broke into his home while he was baby-sitting his three younger siblings. The children were home alone on a Saturday afternoon when an unrecognized woman rang their doorbell. After the 14-year-old boy refused to open the door, he heard a loud bang, which indicated that someone was trying to break into the house. The boy hurried his younger siblings upstairs and collected a handgun from his parents' room. When the boy rounded the top of the stairs, there was a man standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at him. The boy shot at the intruder and saved the lives of his three younger siblings.

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I took an oath to uphold the First Amendment. I took an oath to uphold the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment reads: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It doesn't say "might be" infringed. Nor does it say "could be" infringed. It read "shall not" be infringed. The current gun-control legislation being proposed unquestionably infringes.For these reasons, I will work diligently to stop any such gun-control legislation. Our Constitution, individual liberty and personal safety depend on it.