Scoggins 1

Matthew Scoggins
English 111
9-19-18
Getting Rid of Guns

Is it worth all the lives that guns and the wrong people with guns have caused? This

article that Molly Ivins has written is all about getting rid of guns. As she says in the article that

she supports the Second Amendment, but she doesn’t think that everyone should be able to keep

and bear arms which is what the Second Amendment says:

As a civil libertarian, I of course support the Second Amendment. And I

believe it means exactly what it says: ‘A well-regulated militia being

necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and

bear arms shall not be infringed.’ (Ivins)

In Molly Ivins article she says that only people who are trained and part of the militia should

have guns, but in the Second Amendment the right of the people. (Which means everyone not

just militia.) To keep and bear arms and they shall not ever be infringed (Which means not be

used to brake a law or other people’s rights). She did talk a lot about that but she also she

brought up the example of the car, and how you must have a license to drive and restrict their use

to presumably sane and sober adults and keep track of who sells them to whom. (Ivins) Plus she

compared a knife to a gun:

In the first place, you have catch up with someone in order to stab him. A

general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness.

We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet.

And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives. (Ivins)
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Maybe less people would die if we took guns away from people and let them have knives instead

of guns but then you are going against the Second Amendment. Also, people can still get hurt

and it could be worse with carrying a knife especially if you don’t know how to use a knife.

The article Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns by Molly Ivins does invoke

many emotions to gain acceptance towards her audience. The main thing that she said that makes

the audience angry if they don’t agree that guns need to be taken and only give to the militia.

They think that it is your God given right to bear arms. (Ivins) But other than that there is not

much emotion in the article that Molly has written. Who is Molly Ivins? She didn’t even talk

about herself other than she said that she agrees with the Second Amendment. But she didn’t

introduce herself to the audience and didn’t say if she is an expert in guns or what. If you're

going to write an article criticizing guns and saying that you are for the Second Amendment but,

yet you are still going to criticize guns. And people who use guns to protect their selves from

criminals.

People kill people not guns a gun's trigger doesn’t pull itself it has to have someone to

pull it. But evidently, she thinks they do:

Anyone who has ever worked in a cop shop knows how many family

arguments end in murder because there was a gun in the house. Did the

gun kill someone? No. But if there had been no gun, no one would have

died. At least not without a good footrace first. Guns do kill. Unlike cars,

that is all they do. (Ivins)

If the family didn’t have a gun and if a robber came in, they could not defend their selves.

Overall This whole article is straight bull crap it honestly is not worth reading.
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Work Cited

Ivins, Molly. The Short Prose Reader - "Get a Knife, Get a Dog, But Get Rid of Guns". 10th ed.,

Mcgraw-Hill, 2003