Resolved- All legally and clinically sane citizens should have the right to keep and bear arms.

Resolved- All legally and clinically sane citizens should have the right to keep and bear arms. First of all, let me thank my opponent for accepting this debate, if in fact he does accept it. The right to keep and bear arms is a right given by birth, not only a right protected by the laws of many countries. This isn't an issue about regulation, the amount of firearms allowed, munitions used, whether or not the firearm is auto/semi-auto, etc.- this is simply an issue of the right to keep and bear arms. No man- armed or disarmed- has the right to keep from another this right, which in some cases is essential to self defense, acquisition of food through hunting, and/or sport. When criminality is taken into consideration, criminal elements are those who do not abide by the law. Lawfully acquired and stored weapons have little to do with this criminal element, and those who commit crimes with legally acquired weapons are nonetheless criminals. Because of this there is not question as to whether or not laws should be enforced, rather whether or not non-criminals should be afforded the same ease to acquire weapons that criminal enterprises afford other criminals. If the right to bear arms is not respected by the government, and law abiding citizens are disarmed, there is a legal disparity between criminal elements and law abiding citizens- not to say that armed citizens are a deterrent to crime, rather they should have the right to defend themselves from these criminals if a situation should arise. As gun rights advocate Jeff Snyder states, we cannot condition the liberties of regular citizens according to the actions and desires of criminals. There is a fundamental error in the school of thought that tries to save society from itself by identifying a problem, and rather than treating the personality of those causing the problem, the instrument is attacked. You cannot get rid of crime by getting rid of guns, and you cannot treat maladies and ethics issues in society by attempting to control the minds of the citizens by restricting access to some and allowing access to others (in this case). The "individual rights vs collective rights" argument is irrelevant when you consider the above paragraph and other statements I have made, so I will not argue that route. I don't believe this is a right afforded to us by law, rather a right that should NOT be taken from us by law- however, it is only a recent argument that the right afforded to Americans under the Second Amendment of the Constitution is a collective right. Through part of the 20th century, and throughout the 19th and 18th century before then, any mention of the Second Amendment was viewed as an individual right. Not one Court or commentator argued that this was a collective right, rather than an individual one until the 20th century. Thomas Jefferson stated that the right to bear arms is necessary for the citizenry to protect itself from the "tyranny in government". Now, I know these are different times, and people have different views of the world, and it would be considered undemocratic and even terroristic for a disgruntled minority to rise up against the majority supported government, but were the government in a position of unchecked and unregulated power, and the majority of the people, towns, and states in opposition to the Federal government this right would be essential to carrying out a proper uprising as nations have done in the past when their governments have become oppressive. Were a legal means of access to firearms not available, these people would have to resort to molotov cocktails, stone throwing, and criminal elements who in fact are armed… say like Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. These groups are fundamentally opposed by the people in philosophy- especially Hezbollah in Lebanon- but because these groups are armed, equipped, and organized they have the power of opposition. I will close with the following statements. One from the Declaration of Independence, and one from Abraham Lincoln respectively: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it" "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."