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Home \| Miscellaneous Gun Control By: The Gale Group, Inc "The United States is the leader in per capita gun deaths among industrial nations. This has resulted in various gun control laws at the federal and state levels that seek to reduce crime and violence by restricting private gun ownership. Supporters of gun control would like even tighter restrictions. They face strong opposition from those trying to protect what they view as the right to own and bear firearms. When British troops were occupying Boston in 1774, they attempted to confiscate the inhabitants' firearms in hopes of preventing an uprising. Knowing of the British plan, the Americans hid their weapons and eventually used them to win their independence. After the war, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution recalled that having an armed populace had helped secure liberty. When the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, the framers stated in the Second Amendment: ""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 only other country in the world that has a right-to-arms provision in its federal constitution is Mexico. Individual-rights view This opinion is based on the belief that the language of the Second Amendment refers specifically to a right ascribed to all Americans as individuals. Apart from a few absolutists, proponents of the individual-rights view generally believe that some restrictions on gun ownership are allowable, such as laws preventing convicted violent criminals and known terrorists from legally purchasing and carrying weapons in the United States Collective-rights view This view insists that the Bill of Rights offers no compelling evidence that an individual's right to own a gun is protected by the Constitution and that the Second Amendment applies only to the arming of militias, or ""collections"" of people involved in defending the country from outside insurgents. Many collective-rights gun control advocates believe that owning a gun might be considered safe and acceptable under certain circumstances, such as shotguns or rifles used for regulated sporting events and licensed hunting. Banning certain types of weapons In September 1994, the Clinton administration passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. This federal law bans the manufacture of nineteen military-style assault weapons, copycat street models that mimic features of assault weapons, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds. It also expands the federal death penalty to cover about sixty offenses, including terrorist homicides, murder of a federal law enforcement officer, large-scale drug trafficking, drive-by shootings resulting in death, and carjackings resulting in death. The law also prevents domestic abuse offenders and people under domestic abuse restraining orders from owning a gun, and it imposes greater restrictions on gun dealers and interstate firearms commerce. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was allowed to expire on September 13, 2004. Gun control advocates are working to re-introduce a bill that improves upon the original law. gun violence Despite strong and passionate arguments on both sides of the issue of gun rights, almost everyone agrees that the use of guns in violent crime is a problem in society. The two sides differ, however, on how to solve the problem. Some say that if the right to own a gun is infringed and fewer people are able to own guns for their protection, the result will be greater crime and violence. Critics of this view agree that in order to limit gun violence and make society safer, reasonable restrictions on gun ownership should be enforced on the state and federal levels. Most supporters of the individual-rights view of the Second Amendment believe that owning a gun is a fundamental right of all law-abiding American citizens, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Most supporters of the collective-rights view believe that owning a gun is a privilege, that certain reasonable restrictions imposed by legal means are necessary and appropriate, and this privilege is not protected by the Constitution. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Point of View 1: Second Amendment Does Not Guarantee the Individual's Right to Bear Arms On 15 December 1791 the Bill of Rights officially became a part of the Constitution. Few of its provisions are as controversial as the Second Amendment. A pressing question remains whether it protects the individual right to keep guns or the collective right of the people for security through a militia. The wording of the amendment is responsible for the confusion. Gun control proponents rely upon the clause, ""a well regulated Militia,"" as necessary for the security of the states. They contend that the amendment protects only the communal right of the people to have a state military force, ostensibly for protection from the tyranny of an aggressive government. The documentary record suggests that this argument is probably the most accurate. Proponents of the collective-right argument have significant constitutional sanction for their position. The Second Amendment balanced federal power and state power over a shared responsibility for the militia. Proponents of the unobstructed federal right to bear arms read literally, ""the right of the people to keep and bear Arms"" shall not be denied them. The advocates of the individual-rights argument cite the Second Amendment to argue that it guarantees the individual right to own guns. They suggest that guns enable citizens to protect themselves against the government and other individuals who would do them harm. There is nothing in the history of the United States that supports this theory. The federal government does not tolerate armed rebellion. The First Amendment guarantees only ""the right of the people peaceably to assemble."" It cannot be said that the Founding Fathers intended for armed citizens to turn their guns on the state; this type of action has never been tolerated, and the United States has prosecuted rebels. There is little real evidence that the Second Amendment was designed to protect an individual right to bear arms. American concern for safety and security has always been a communal one. Law enforcement has long been the answer for personal threats; Americans have always viewed vigilantes as loathsome. To suggest that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of every individual to own weapons of any description flies in the face of logic and fact. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Point of View 2: Gun Ownership is Both a Right and a Responsibility From the founding of the United States, when citizens were required to own guns in order to be prepared to participate in militia efforts, and after the Revolution, when they could not be expected to survive frontier life without them, Americans have seen gun ownership as an inherent right. The Second Amendment to the Constitution reinforced this right, although debate continues as to the most accurate interpretation of the amendment's now-archaic language. ""Unlike most of the world's people, many Americans view the possession of firearms as the norm rather than the exception,"" writes David B. Kopel. Statistics abound on both sides of the gun-control argument: proponents of gun control argue that the thousands of children who are shot to death each year should be reason enough to outlaw guns, while proponents of gun ownership argue that most of those deaths occur during gang- or drug-related violence committed with illegal guns, and that the federal government does not adequately enforce existing laws. ""Unless they are strictly enforced, federal gun laws have little impact on crime,"" says Benjamin Kepple in Heterodoxy. ""The National Rifle Association (NRA) has shown that the best way to reduce gun violence is to prosecute felons who attempt to purchase guns. For example, federal gun laws are strictly enforced in Richmond, Virginia, with the help of the NRA's Project EXILE program; as a result, murder rates have fallen sharply in that city. However, the Justice and Treasury departments have not acknowledged the success of Project EXILE and refuse to prosecute people whose violent felonies are revealed in background checks."" There is common ground between gun control advocates and detractors: Both sides want a reduction in gun-related injuries and deaths. Says Gary Rosen in Commentary, ""[a] middle ground needs to be reached on gun control ... because both sides of the issue have valid arguments. Supporters of gun control point out the inadequacies of current laws in preventing the high rates of firearm fatalities. However, opponents of gun control have correctly argued that legislation has little effect on adolescent gun-related deaths and mass shootings."" Rosen posits that the concurrent rise in private gun ownership and overall drop in crime disproves the gun-control lobby's argument that gun ownership leads to more crime. The idea of a ""smart gun"" that will function only for its authorized user is appealing to many, but the technology is in its infancy, and some suggest that the motivation behind it is to render all existing guns illegal, thereby disarming Americans. ""The `smart gun' is just pie in the sky,"" says police officer and self-defense expert Massad Ayoob. ""At best, it's an immature technology a great distance away from proving itself applicable to the guns used daily by police officers and law-abiding armed citizens. At worst, it may be the sneakiest trick yet to deprive the American public of its right to own firearms."" Resources Ayoob, Massad. ""Handguns Cannot Be Made to Recognize Authorized Users."" Guns and Violence. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Kepple, Benjamin. ""Enforcing Current Gun Laws Will Reduce Gun Violence."" How Can Gun Violence Be Reduced? Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Kopel, David B. ""Owning Guns Is Rooted in America's Cultural Past."" Is Gun Ownership a Right? Ed. Kelly Doyle. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Rosen, Gary. ""Comprising on Gun Control Can Reduce Gun Violence."" How Can Gun Violence Be Reduced? Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Point of View 3: Second Amendment Guarantees the Individual's Right to Bear Arms Those who believe that the second amendment guarantee’s an individual’s right to own guns align with classical liberalism, which relied on the moral philosophy of natural rights, whereby certain things existed outside the authority of government. Classical liberals went so far as to describe some natural rights as ""inalienable,"" meaning they could not be taken away even if a majority of citizens wished to do so. Rights also worked in concert with responsibilities, the most important of which was protecting one's natural rights of life and property. Governments could neither touch these rights nor interfere in a person's responsibility in protecting them. The greatest concern for most American citizens during the Founding period was limiting the power of government, not providing political institutions with the means of inculcating virtue. Gun control advocates believe the Second Amendment protects a collective right to have weapons and confine this right to a state-sponsored militia. In short, keeping and bearing arms is inseparable from a well-regulated militia. A militia played an important role in eighteenth-century thinking, particularly with regard to republican ideology that collective-right scholars claim permeated the Founding generation. Not only did militias offer citizens the opportunity to defend their interests collectively, they allowed the American gentry to instill among their lesser neighbors a strong commitment to public order and social hierarchy. The Second Amendment, then, was one more attempt by the Founders to inculcate virtue and republicanism in the American people. The Founders conceived the Second Amendment as a limit on the federal government's ability to regulate individual gun ownership and to hinder the states' abilities to muster, equip, and train their militia. By implication, rather than qualifying individuals' right to protect themselves and their property, it encouraged the widespread ownership of weapons as well as reinforced the people's duty to protect their interests from arbitrary government. COPYRIGHT 2007 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Evaluating Content Articles on WiseTo Social Issues are an important tool in evaluating content. 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Compare the information presented in vaIue-centered arguments Compare the information presented in fact-centered arguments Compare the information presented in fact-centered arguments · In-depth, objective examination of opposing views is most easily done with topics that rely on fact to prove their point. But many debates center on philosophical and personal values. Issues like abortion, the death penalty, and euthanasia will typically hinge more on values than on fact. · Even though it is difficult, you can still learn to evaluate these arguments. What values does the author present as important? Which values does he/she think are irrelevant or of secondary importance? How do the authors' values compare with those of the reader? When judging moral arguments, ask yourself whether your personal views changed after reading the points of view. Did reading both views inform and reinforce your opinion, or did it change slightly? 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