(D.J.) Dylan Lintelman(FGCU): Gun Control

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution declares “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 meaning and scope of this right has been described as among the most contested of the rights codified in the Bill of Rights.What does this Amendment really mean?  Some historians believe the amendment was created so that citizens of the US could stand up and have weapons to rebel against their own government if the situation presented itself that their government proved tyrannical.  Not only is the right to own guns hotly contested but also who should own them and what type of guns should people be allowed to own.  Right now, private ownership of automatic assault rifles in the US is mostly illegal except in certain cases where special permits are issued, but what if we did fully legalize the use of these deadly and rapid firing guns?  Would bank robbers be mowing down a whole crowd of people as well as SWAT team members or would they stick to their pistols and shotguns?

Gun control laws and regulations exist at all levels of government, with the vast majority being local codes which vary between jurisdictions. The NRA reports 20,000 gun laws nationwide. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine notes 300 federal and state laws regarding the manufacture, design, sale, purchase, or possession of guns.

At the federal level, fully automatic weapons and short barrel shotguns have been taxed and mandated to be registered since 1934 with the National Firearms Act. The Gun Control Act of 1968 adds prohibition of mail-order sales, prohibits transfers to minors, and outlaws civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986. The 1968 Act requires that guns carry serialand implemented a tracking system to determine the purchaser of a gun whose make, model, and serial number are known. It also prohibited gun ownership by convicted felons and certain other individuals. The Act was updated in the 1990s with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act mainly to add a mechanism for the criminal history of gun purchasers to be checked at the point of sale, and in 1996 with the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Act to prohibit ownership and use of guns by individuals convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

 Firearms are the second leading cause of traumatic death related to a consumer product in the United States and are the second most frequent cause of death overall for Americans ages 15 to 24. Since 1960, more than a million Americans have died in firearm suicides, homicides, and unintentional injuries. In 2003 alone, 30,136 Americans died by gunfire: 16,907 in firearm suicides, 11,920 in firearm homicides, 730 in unintentional shootings, and 232 in firearm deaths of unknown intent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Nearly three times that number are treated in emergency rooms each year for nonfatal firearm injuries.

Gun control is a serious problem in the US and we need to find solutions to this problem before more innocent lives are taken.  There is a big difference between political parties on this issue.  Republicans want less gun control and less government altogether.  They believe the right to own a gun is an inherited right and think that it should have little regulation.  Democrats on the other hand, favor more gun control in order to prevent school related incidences and unnecessary homicides.

Firearms are undoubtedly the most frequently used murder weapon across the board.  It is up to us to elect political leaders who sway in the directions of our own beliefs depending on the way we feel about the gun control issue.  More gun control will make our streets safer, but without guns how would we protect ourselves and our families from violent crimes? Guns are one thing that you cant live with and you cant live without, and right now the debate goes back and forth with no resolutions in sight.  I think because of the hot debate politicians continue to push the gun control debate further back on the political agenda, seeing as both sides are unlikely to reach a compromise any time soon.

This entry was posted on 29. January 2009 at 22:04 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.