America’s history of regulating private ownership of firearms goes back to the year 1791, when the Bill of Rights gained its final ratification. The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights states, “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 true meaning of the Second Amendment is that we, as Americans, are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms. This right must not be infringed upon. Everyone has heard countless statistics regarding firearms and violence. According to the National Institute of Justice, firearms were used in 68 percent of murders, 42 percent of robbery offenses and 22 percent of aggravated assaults nationwide in 2006. The National Institute of Justice does not clarify how many of the murders and assaults were in self-defense, or suicide. They also do not disclose how many firearms related murders were police involved. Of the robbery offenses, aggravated assaults, and murders, there is no figure placed on the amount of firearms that were legally purchased. I am certain that the amount of crimes committed with firearms were illegally were from those purchased on the black market, which is a controversial issue all on its own. The director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice, Tim Lynch, writes that “The defensive use of guns happens much more often than people realize,” and, “Each year gun owners prevent a great deal of criminal mayhem—murders, rapes, robberies, and batteries.” In the Cato Institute’s study, a gun is never even fired in the vast majority of self-defense cases. From the information gathered in the Cato’s Project, many crimes are prevented from innocent citizens being armed. While citizens remain armed, the chance of criminals following through with their plans of committing robbery, rape, or any other crime, where being