The Second Amendment

Mariama Diallo

I am not naïve enough to believe that doing away with the Second Amendment would do away with gun violence, but I know firsthand the impact of guns and gun shots on children. This nation was constructed and reconstructed in the aftermath of violent and bloody conflicts. Still, the Framers believed that not only the Constitution, but also the peaceful way the document was created, would penetrate the Americans' minds and change they engaged. The Constitution would be the only weapon needed unless there was an external enemy.

This quote by Melynda Price forces us to stop and rethink about the United States constitution, to be precise the Second Amendment which gives the US citizens the right to bear arms (guns). Melynda doesn’t believe that getting rid of the Second Amendment will fully eliminate gun violence. Instead, she believe it will help reduce gun violence. Weapons are not the best tools to use when it comes to solving conflicts or even rightly changing the minds of the citizens.  The United States Constitution is just a peaceful document and it is up. Do we use it as it is or do we revised it to fit our life style today?

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states the following: “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." The main propose of the Second Amendment at the time when it was declared was to give the US citizens the right to defend themselves and the country during wars. All that being said, Should all US citizens be allowed to bear arms? This is a question we should all be asking ourselves. The United States army forces is one of the top if not the best army in the world which means that we don’t need every US citizen to be armed. I chose this quote because it is a very important issue we are facing. I strongly believe that the Second Amendment should be revised or eliminated. Given the people the right to bear arms have more negative impact than positive impact. Lately, every time you turn around there are school shootings or taxi drivers being shot and killed during working hours. For example, couple weeks ago, Mamadou Barry, a taxi driver was found shot to death in his livery cab a few miles from his home. This criminal took away a father of four beautiful sons and a husband of eight month pregnant women. In Addison to, on December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and 6 adult staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. I believe these very sad tragedies are linked to the Second Amendment

The Confederation of America

Mariama Diallo

The Articles of Confederation established the first system of government, first ratified in 1777 and again in 1781. The period between 1783 & 1789 the government was organized according to the Articles of Confederation. Notably, this system of government had no president, there was a Congress of the Confederation but there was only one branch or house, instead of two, and there was no supreme court. The 13 states which were really more like separate countries at this point and had very broad powers, maintained their own state militias, and in many cases even printed their own money and came up with their own rules on trade. The general consensus on this period of time was that the government was weak and ineffective and as a result of this conflict and disorder was increasing within the states and even between the states.

Although America emerged as an independent country after the Articles of confederation (1777 & 1781), the Union was still not perfect. With no president and a strong central government, most states (countries) were still not willing to concede powers. So the Union was very loose with no clear way of enforcing even the most basic rules. This period was marred by many contradictions which pushed the founding fathers to contemplate new laws in order to form a more perfect union.

This situation gave way to the 1787 convention which brought us the Federal Government which was limited in scope but independent of and superior to the states within its assigned role to be able to tax and equipped with both Executive and Judicial branches as well as a two house legislature with the separation of powers (executive, judiciary and legislative branch). It restored economic and political stability of the colonial era and strengthened the federal government's powers of defense and taxation, still in effect today.

Americanization Today

Mariama Diallo

To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow--whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the "melting-pot" Surely we cannot be certain of our spiritual democracy when, claiming to melt the nations within us to a comprehension of our free and democratic institutions, we fly into panic at the first sign of their own will and tendency. We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that America shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendant of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. This is the condition which confronts us, and which demands a clear and general readjustment of our attitude and our ideal.

This paragraph forces us to rethink what Americanization is. The early immigrants (Anglo Saxon) thought of Americanization as assimilation and many social institutions were created to support that ideal. In contrast, the experience and reality of new immigrants in the United States has shown that Americanization does not necessarily mean assimilation. This due mainly due to a more diverse group of immigrants that are now coming in the United States. The fact that the majority if not all the early migrants in America were Christians made it easier to define it then.

With today’s diverse immigrants, the social and political development of the last few decades, Americanization has actually become an ideal; the ideal of freedom and the right to be whoever you want within the limit of the constitution which guarantees those freedoms. New immigrants are able to keep their cultures and traditions while respecting the constitution that afford them that right and pledging to the flag. It is this diversity and the ingenuity of the constitution written by our founding fathers that makes America the greatest country and democracy in the world.