GUN CONTROL

GUN CONTROL

 

Second Amendment of our Constitution

 

"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."

 

This is the part of our Constitution that says a citizen of the United States can own a gun, or at least that is what the National Rifle Association (NRA) has always said.

The NRA and its powerful lobby organization in Washington have made sure that every Republican politician also believes that every citizen can own a gun.

But the NRA and right-wing-gun-nuts also feel that any type of gun should be available to every citizen.

A few months back, there was a terrible shooting at Virginia Tech college, where 33 people were killed. The shooter, we are told, had some mental disorders and never should have had access to any guns.

Background checks vary from state to state and, in Virginia, names of mental patients were never checked. Congress quickly passed legislation that is supposed to make it easier to check into the mental status of a gun buyer.

 

The NRA recently argued that suspected terrorists should be allowed to buy guns because they have not been proven to be terrorists. They used this same logic for mental patients, saying that until someone is proven to have some mental disorder, he or she has the right to buy and own guns.

So according to the NRA, everyone can own guns, Yee Haw.

 

And the NRA says all guns are fair game. Everything from hand guns, machine hand guns, to military M-16s, AK-47s, Uzis and even long-range sniper rifles can be owned. The only thing that is illegal are automatic weapons, meaning the gun keeps firing as long as the trigger is held down. Semi-automatic is legal, meaning the trigger must be pulled each time a bullet is fired.

 

Moral arguments why the Second is not absolute

 

First, it is important to note that no right is absolute, even those supposedly granted by God and guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. For example, even though the First Amendment guarantees me the right to free speech, the right is limited. I cannot publish a newspaper in which I claim that a certain public figure, for example the president of a major company, is a cocaine user, if that fact is known to me to be completely untrue. It would be called libel, and it is a valid abridgment of my rights. The classic example of an abridgment of freedom of speech is the imminent danger rule: I cannot stand up in a crowded theater and scream that there is a fire (if there is not), because the ensuing panic may cause injury.

 

The reason abridgment of rights is sometimes valid is that rights can very easily clash. In the example above, my right to free speech clashes with the people in theater's rights to not be trampled. The same analysis can be applied to the Second Amendment. If the right to own a gun interferes with public safety, that right can morally be abridged in order to protect public safety. And the courts have agreed with this position, as follows.

 

Legal arguments why the Second is not absolute

 

Throughout the history of the United States, many court decisions have limited the right to keep and bear arms. The Miller case in the early 20th century limited the right to own certain classes of weapons. More recently, we have the following from the United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, which indicates that the clause about "a well regulated militia" does not mean that the average citizen is part of that militia. "Since the Second Amendment right 'to keep and bear arms' applies only to the right of the state to maintain a militia, and not to the individual's right to bear arms, there can be no serious claim to any express constitutional right of an individual to possess a firearm." (Stevens v. U.S., United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, 1971).

 

A similar ruling from the Seventh Circuit held that "Construing [the language of the Second Amendment] according to its plain meaning, it seems clear that the right to bear arms is inextricably connected to the preservation of a militia...We conclude that the right to keep and bear handguns is not guaranteed by the Second Amendment." (Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1982).

 

As you can see, there is a strong case proving that the Second Amendment does not guarantee every citizen the right to own guns. I personally believe that limited gun ownership should be legal, but I think that there must be limits on the types of guns that citizens can own.

 

FIREARM FACTS - Guns in the United States - Easy Access to Deadly Weapons

 

·        There are approximately 192 million privately owned firearms in the U.S. - 65 million of which are handguns.

 

·        Currently, an estimated 39 percent of households have a gun, while 24 percent have a handgun.

 

·        In 1998 alone, licensed firearms dealers sold an estimated 4.4 million guns, 1.7 million of which were handguns. Additionally, it is estimated that one to three million guns change hands in the secondary market each year, and many of these sales are not regulated.

 

Gun Deaths and Injury - The United States Leads the World in Firearm Violence

 

·        In 2004, 29,569 people in the United States died from firearm-related deaths – 11,624 (39 percent) of those were murder, 16,750 (57 percent) were suicide, 649 (2.2 percent) were accidents, and in 235 (.8 percent) the intent was unknown.  In comparison, 33,651 Americans were killed in the Korean War and 58,193 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War.

 

·        For every firearm fatality in the United States in 2005, there were estimated to be more than two non-fatal firearm injuries.

 

·        In 2004, firearms were used to murder 56 people in Australia, 184 people in Canada, 73 people in England and Wales, five people in New Zealand, and 37 people in Sweden.

 

·        In comparison, firearms were used to murder 11,624 people in the United States.

 

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Source: Centers for Disease Control

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Source: Center for Electronic Records. National Archives.

 

 

Common sense arguments

 

When our Constitution was written, people used guns for hunting food, as well as protection. Today, people buy their food and no longer hunt for food (at least most do not). Unfortunately, there is still a need for protection, but machine guns are offensive weapons, meant for just one thing - to kill.

 

The bottom line is not everyone should be allowed to buy a gun just because they live here and not every gun should be for sale.

 

I wonder if I can own a tank…

 

 

 

 

David Phillips is a Vietnam Era Veteran, a Democratic Party Activist, and David is also the Publisher and Editor of the online political magazine YodasWorld.org

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