The right to legally carry a concealed weapon is currently being reviewed by our neighbors to the south.

After a law to allow concealed weapons was vetoed by Missouri’s governor and overturned by the state’s Congress, a judge ordered a temporary injunction against it, citing possible constitutionality problems. Apparently, the state’s constitution states the right to bear arms “shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.”

The use of this part of the Missouri Constitution is questionable in this case. This line of the constitution clearly states wearing a concealed weapon is not justified by a person’s right to bear arms — but it also places no direct restriction on carrying concealed weapons. Opponents of the new law cite the fact the constitution doesn’t state specific rights to carry a weapon in this manner.

However, state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution were never meant to be documents that created rights for people. They may guarantee specific rights deemed unquestionably pertinent at the time, but do not encompass all rights citizens have.

In Iowa, we are allowed to carry concealed weapons with a permit. The idea of interacting with people and not knowing if they are packing heat is a little unsettling, but it isn’t exactly easy to acquire a permit, especially in Iowa. We do not have “shall-issue permits.” This means if a person has fulfilled all of the requirements to obtain a permit, the county sheriff may still deny the application based on his discretion. Missouri’s newly passed law has no such provision.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why I am supporting the right to bear arms. After all, my party affiliation falls far from the conservative side. Simply put, I’m a big believer in civil rights. To me, guns don’t seem to be the problem.

I’m reminded of one of the characters in the movie “Happy Gilmore” who wore a shirt displaying “Guns don’t kill people, I do.” In my mind, this is the absolute truth.

Because America has a dramatically higher number of gun-related deaths than other countries, a call for gun control has been made. However, citizens all over the world own guns and don’t kill people with them at the same rate Americans do. So guns can’t be to blame. If anything, gun control has seen some negative side effects once put into place.

Take, for instance, Australia’s gun bans. Crime rates in Australia had been consistently going down until the government decided to take nearly 650,000 guns from its citizens. After this took place, homicides went up 3.2 percent, assaults went up 8.6 percent and armed robberies went up 45 percent. Obviously, gun control taken to the extreme is a very bad thing.

Despite the fact I am opposed to gun control, there is one unsettling action taken time and time again by opponents of gun control laws. Their argument for gun ownership rests solely on the Second Amendment which ambiguously gives the right to bear arms.

What are arms? Are they nuclear weapons? Gun advocates say we must have guns to allow us to defend ourselves against our government in case of tyranny. Undoubtedly, this was the framers’ intent. However, that was a different time.

We had just revolted against a tyrannical government. Also, the arms of those days were dramatically different than what we have today.

Call me na‹ve, but I don’t feel the government poses a great enough threat to warrant our need for guns. Even if I did think that way, to be effective in stopping a tyrannical government, we would need arms far more powerful than what we are allowed to bear now. We would need weapons of mass destruction equal to the weapons our government possesses. How else would we defeat them?

Since most people, gun advocates included, do not think a person should be in ownership of weapons-grade plutonium, justifying the right to bear arms based solely on the Constitution makes for an ineffective argument.

What this all boils down to is if you regulate gun ownership, you only regulate possession by law-abiding citizens. The people illegally obtaining guns cannot possibly be regulated, and since they constitute a greater risk of using their weapons, regulating legal ownership is self-defeating. Gun-related violence in America is not a problem caused by guns; let’s stop blaming inanimate objects for the actions of troubled people.