The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Constitution that protects the right to keep and bear arms by its citizens. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. The right to bear arms predates the Bill of Rights; the Second Amendment was based partially on the right to bear arms in English common-law, and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This right was described as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state. Academic inquiry into the purpose, scope, and effect of the amendment has been controversial and subject to numerous interpretations both by constitutional scholars and ordinary citizens.
America has a long history of its citizens keeping and bearing arms. The earliest settlers from Virginia thru New England used their firearms to hunt for game to feed their families and protect them from attack from both two and four legged predators. Firearms in essence, changed the culture of guns in the Americas. Gun control is another of those pesky freedoms granted by the countries forefathers in the attempt to protect the citizenry from a tyrannical ruling government. Our founding fathers have provided many quotes regarding why they adopted the Second Amendment Here are but a few of them: (Guncite.Com)
"A free people ought to be armed."
- George Washington
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson
"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense."
- John Adams
"To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason
"I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians."
- George Mason (father of the Bill of Rights and The Virginia Declaration of Rights)
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe."
- Noah Webster
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster
"A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace."
- James Madison
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms."
- James Madison
Illinois, and District of Columbia have the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The District of Columbia has the highest murder rate in the U.S.A. at 24.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Up until 2008 it was impossible for people to protect themselves due to the fact that the District required people owning guns to have them completely disassembled in their homes. The case of the District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves. (Pizzulo, 2013)
The decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment extends beyond federal enclaves to the states, this was addressed later by McDonald v. Chicago (2010). It was the first Supreme Court case in United States history to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense,
On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia. The Court of Appeals had struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the District of Columbia's regulations act was an unconstitutional banning, and struck down the portion of the regulations act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock." "Prior to this decision the Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 also restricted residents from owning handguns except for those registered prior to 1975.”
The NRA has filed five related lawsuits since the Heller decision. In four Illinois lawsuits, the NRA sought to have the Second Amendment incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, causing the Second Amendment to apply to state and local jurisdictions and not just to the federal government. Three Illinois lawsuits have been negotiated and settled out of court involving agreements that repeal gun ban ordinances and did not result in incorporation of the Second Amendment to state and local jurisdictions. The fourth NRA lawsuit against Chicago was rejected. The NRA appealed the case to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. On June 2, 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision, based on the theory that Heller applied only to the Federal Government (including the District of Columbia), and not to states or their subordinate jurisdictions. This opinion directly conflicts with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal's earlier decision, holding that Heller applies to states as well. On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuits decision in McDonald v. Chicago and remanded it back to Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicago gun restrictions and the Second Amendment. Justice Breyer likened Chicago’s handgun law to the D.C. handgun ban.
Similarly, three Illinois municipalities with gun control measures on the books that previously had banned all handguns have rescinded their handgun bans. These cities were Morton Grove, Illinois, Wilmette Illinois, and Evanston Illinois, which enacted a partial repeal of their handgun ban.
In Ezell v. Chicago, decided July 6, 2011, the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court decision that the post-McDonald measures adopted by the City of Chicago were constitutional. (caselaw.findlaw.com, 2011)The Chicago law required firearms training in a shooting range in order to obtain a gun permit, but also banned shooting ranges within the City of Chicago. The City had argued that applicants could obtain their training at gun ranges in the suburbs. The opinion noted that Chicago could not infringe Second Amendment rights on the grounds that they could be exercised elsewhere, any more than it could infringe the right to freedom of speech on the grounds that citizens could speak elsewhere. There has been much discourse on the Second Amendment most liberals would like to see the Second Amendment repealed and guns of all types banned and/or confiscated. The conservatives want to ensure that it remains in the Constitution in its original language and with the forefather’s intended meaning. A recent video of people in Los Angeles was released of people signing a petition to confiscate all firearms immediately from the tea party and white right wing extremists, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2diNojgJF9c). No one in the video questioned the premise or legality in confiscating the guns even when the man supporting the petition says that guns owned by criminals and illegal guns generally would be okay and remain without restriction. What gun control advocates forget is that gun owners already have to submit to firearms safety classes, background checks, fingerprinting, and other hurdles before they are licensed to own a firearm for hunting and recreational shooting. If the person wants a concealed carry permit for life and protection of property they have do all the above and must show proficiency with the firearm at a police gun range.
The causes of violence in America have been attributed from rap music, violent video games, and violence in movies and television. After the deaths in Connecticut the left resort to their singular solution a total ban on guns would end the problem. The school shootings were of course tragic, but the root cause of the incident remains unanswered. Ultimately the shooter was to blame for the taking of so many lives. Contributing factors have been raised as to whether the mother should have had firearms in the house knowing that her son suffered emotional problems. The psychiatrist has also been mentioned as having knowledge of how disturbed her patient was but unable to disclose it because of medical privacy issues.

(n.d.). Retrieved from Guncite.Com: http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html caselaw.findlaw.com. (2011, April 4). Retrieved from Case Law Find Law.
Pizzulo, A. (2013, March 11). The Big Slice. Retrieved from www.thebigslice.org: http://thebigslice.org/district-of-columbia-v-heller-beyond-the-gun-noise/