How We’ve Let The Second Amendment Become Cost Prohibitive

The thought of our Second Amendment being taken away is brought up every election cycle, as conservatives everywhere fear what will come of their guns if the wrong person wins. What so many of us fail to notice and realize is that for many of us the Second Amendment has already been taken away. We have already lost the fight to keep the Second Amendment for everyone on many fronts. There are entire communities of people who, while not outright banned from owning firearms, have had it retrospectively banned by state and local laws that make the Second Amendment cost prohibitive. 

The right to bear arms now comes with a price tag so high that entire classes of people are left without it’s protection. The cost of firearms period make it an expensive right to put to practice, but even before someone can purchase their first firearm many states have put into effect additional hundreds of dollar’s worth of fees and requirements that make it even more impossible. Licensing, tests to get licensees, fees, taxes, fingerprinting, all of these small laws put forward come with a price tag of their own that eventually adds up to an expense hurdle that the middle and lower classes can’t get over. 

Often, people don’t even realize the expenses there are to purchasing and owning a gun in their state until they are knee deep in the process. For example, in some states to carry their gun the average citizen will need a $75 license, to qualify for that license, they must pay for a $50 class where they will be tested, to get into that class they need to pay $15 for fingerprinting. The costs go on and on with taxes and more fees added on top depending on their county laws even. For the single mother that wants to protect her family, these costs can be what leaves her without the option to do that. 

As conservatives, we have done a great job at bringing attention to the major threats to impede on our second amendment right, but we have let this type of impediment go without push back for too long. Too often, it is those of us that can’t afford the safety of gated communities and neighborhood watches that need the Second Amendment the most, yet it’s been made to be so far out of our grasp that we are left as the most vulnerable in society. 

Due to work schedules, transportation, and lack of childcare it can be hard for those most affected by these laws to make their voice heard to state legislators and interest groups. It is dependent on those of us that have the privilege of free time and access to our state legislators to make sure that no citizen gets forgotten when it comes to their constitutional right to own a firearm. Even if we can personally afford to deal with these laws and restrictions, we must always be thinking of those that can’t and take their plight seriously. 

The Second Amendment should be and was meant to be for everyone, not just those that are privileged enough to be able to afford to jump through the hoops that many states put on it. For whole classes of people, the Second Amendment has already been made impossible to grasp before they even hold their first gun in their hands. It is up to all of us to show that when we say the Second Amendment is for everyone that we mean it and use our voices to stand up for those who have been kept from their constitutional right long enough.