The Gun Control Debate

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Charlie Roberts

Etheridge, L

AP Government and Politics

The Gun Control Debate

In the United States of America the debate over the strictness and enforcement of gun control laws has recently been brought to the surface in the general public and government. After recent incidents, one of which being the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, many people have started thinking that gun control laws should be much more strict than they are and have been. There are people in government and in general who have opinions on both sides of the issue and are very emotional about their position.

Some people feel that the current laws are adequate and that they should just be enforced more strictly. These people believe their right to bear arms is protected by the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States. They don’t feel that guns kill people, but that people kill people. They feel we should deal with the sicknesses and problems that the people who commit violent crimes have rather than make new stricter gun control laws.

Other people feel that the gun control laws are not strict enough and that it should be much harder to buy a gun and the sale of some firearms should be prohibited. These people believe that if it was harder to purchase a gun, then the number of crimes committed using a gun would decrease. Examples of new laws that are being talked about are:

Mandatory background checks for buying a gun at a gun show or from an individual

Not allowing anyone to buy certain automatic weapons

Not allowing anyone to buy a ammunition clip that holds over a certain number of bullets

This paper will give a background of gun control laws, explain the role the National Rifle Association (NRA) plays in the debate (and what their views are), discuss the Brady bill and give insight into my thoughts on gun control.

In America today, basically any person who passes a background check can purchase a gun from a licensed dealer. Many of the background checks are passed in a matter of minutes. However, in some cases a person might have to wait around 3 days if the background check did not initially positively pass the person. In Georgia, a person must also be twenty one years old, not be a fugitive, not be convicted of any felonies, and not have a history of drug and alcohol abuse or mental illness. A fee of twenty dollars is usually charged for application and finger printing. If a person meets the requirements and has the money, they may purchase the gun. If a person is buying a gun from an unlicensed individual, no background check is required and there is no fee.

In order to carry a concealed hand gun in Georgia outside of your property, you must get a Georgia Weapons Carry License issued under code 16-11-129 (uscarry.com).

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states that "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" (U.S. const.am.2). Basically what this means is that every United States citizen has the right to own and keep a gun in order to keep the militia, or army made up by the people, armed. There are a few reasons why the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment when they were writing the Bill of Rights:

Safety against criminal elements

National security

An insurance policy against our own government’s aggression against its people

The first reason the framers included the Second Amendment in the Constitution was to help citizens with their own safety against criminals. First of all, many people feel much safer if they have a firearm on them, especially if they are in a dangerous place. Also, although there are many police officers and other law enforcement officers constantly on the job, criminals don’t tend to commit crimes when they are around. Therefore, guns help victims of crime to defend themselves when crimes are committed. Some people also feel safer with a gun in their house to protect from intruders. If a person is trying to break into someone’s house and they live in an area where it would take a while for the police to respond and act, the victim could threaten the criminal for his or her own safety. Guns basically provide a sense of protection and safety for citizens.

The second reason that the framers included the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution is that if every citizen has a gun, it will provide national security. State militias were formed to protect their States and Country from invaders either foreign or domestic. The members of the Militias were allowed to have guns in their homes. They were not full time soldiers and they were called into action only when needed.

The third, last, and most important reason that the framers included the Second Amendment in the United Sates Constitution was for an insurance policy against the relatively new United States government. In other words, they didn’t want the government to forcefully take over, so they let the people have the right to own guns. They had experienced dictatorships in the Countries they came to America from like England and wanted to make sure their freedoms were protected in America. The framers had a fear that, if the United States had a large army on the ready at all times, the government may try to take over and gain power with the army and turn the United States into a military dictatorship. They thought that a government that has obtained too much power is the greatest threat to the freedom of the citizens. The founding fathers did not know what the future had in hand, so they checked the government with the Second Amendment. For two centuries the goals of the Second Amendment have been successfully achieved.

In the American government and among the citizens of the United States, there are many arguments and opinions about the regulation of guns and how strict the laws on gun control should be.

The first is that gun control laws should be made much stricter than they are now to prevent criminals from getting guns. The people that support this side of the argument think that everyone that is buying a gun should have a background check run on them regardless of who they are buying the gun from to see if they have mental issues or any past problems such as felonies. Currently, if a person wants to buy a gun from a licensed retail store, he or she has to have a background check run. This requirement was instituted as a part of the Brady Bill passed February 8, 1994. However the Brady Bill did not apply to people buying guns at a gun show or from an unlicensed person. Therefore, you can buy a gun at a gun show or from an unlicensed person today. The gun show dealers were left out of the bill in part to protect those people who earn a living selling guns at gun shows. However, many gun control proponents feel like this is a big loophole in the law and does not make any sense. The Brady Bill was named after James Brady who was shot by John Hinckley Jr. during an attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. According to Sarah Brady, James Brady’s wife, if a background check was run on Hinckley, it could have detected his poor criminal and mental health history and he would not been able to purchase the gun he used. Sarah Brady became active in the gun control movement a few years after the shooting. She joined the board of handgun control, Inc. in 1985 and later became the chairperson in 1989. She also became a chairperson of the center to prevent handgun violence.

Some of the strongest proponents of stricter gun control laws want the part of the Brady Bill that allows people to buy guns at gun shows without getting a background check changed to where everybody is required to have a background check to buy a gun no matter where they are buying it. The same people are also making the case that civilians should not be able to purchase fully automatic and some semi-automatic weapons. They feel like these weapons are not used by people to protect themselves but only used for killing other people. Since 1982 there have been sixty one mass killings in the United States using guns (Puhanic). There are no statistics available for how many of these have involved assault rifles, but when an assault rifle or automatic weapon is used, more people die. Recent examples of murders involving a gun include the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting with twenty seven deaths, including twenty young children, the Virginia Tech shooting killing thirty two, the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford, representative of Arizona, and eighteen more people, and the theater shooting in Colorado killing twelve people (The morally serious argument of the pro-gun lobby). Although it would make sense that stricter gun control laws and a tighter regulation of the sales of guns would decrease mass killings and incidents such as the ones listed above, there is no proof that taking such actions would work.

There is also a group of Americans that believes that the current gun control laws are sufficient or already too strict. These people are led by an organization called the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA was started in 1871 and believes that citizens have the right to have guns and supports firearm safety, hunting, self-defense, and training. The NRA’s beliefs are based on the idea that gun ownership is a civil right protected by the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In 2013, membership of the NRA was 4.5 million people and is one of the most aggressive lobbying groups in Washington D.C. (NRA.org). Eight United States presidents have been members of the NRA including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush (NRA.org). The NRA tries to teach safety with firearms and has ideas about how to reduce the number of mass killings without making gun control laws stricter than they are today. They support stricter enforcement of existing laws, such as allowing convicted felons and violent criminals from getting guns, and they support longer jail terms for crimes with guns. In 1934, the NRA supported the National Firearms Act which regulated "gangster weapons" like machine guns, sawed off shotguns, and silencers (NRA.org). The NRA also supported the 1938 Federal Firearms Act that started the federal firearms license program (NRA.org). This made all manufacturers and dealers of firearms obtain a license in order to be able to sell them. In 2004, the NRA opposed the renewal of the federal assault weapons ban of 1994, which ended on September 13, 2004 (NRA.org). After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, the NRA suggested that a good way to keep children safe from people like the invader of the school was to protect the school with armed guards. Also, the NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, talked badly about violent video games and talked about the mentally ill and the need to deal with them better. The NRA also thinks that another way to deal with gun control without new laws is to fight violence in the media and pay more attention to criminals.

After the Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, people’s thoughts about gun control seem to have changed. Before the shooting, people of the United States were split about 50 / 50 between arguments on gun control and the right to own a gun (Guns and Gun Control). After the shooting, however, more people seem to think that it is more important to control gun ownership more than in the past (Guns and Gun Control). Because of this shifting view of many Americans, the NRA is having trouble with its political power for the first time in decades. However, the NRA continues to be a major force in the national gun control debate. Their large membership of 4.5 million people and annual budget of two hundred thirty one million dollars allow them to be very influential in Washington D.C. and across the Country.

There are also people who are not members of the NRA that believe that the current laws on gun control are sufficient. They feel the government should more strictly enforce the current laws rather than create new laws to deal with gun violence. They also feel the government is incapable of protecting them and their families, and they should have the right to own a gun to protect their families. Many Americans on the other side of the argument wonder why anyone is allowed to own a gun and why they can’t do anything to stop gun sales. They either do not understand or believe what NRA executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, meant when talking about a murder/suicide that "The one thing missing in that equation is that woman (the victim) owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer"(The Morally Serious Argument of the Pro-gun Lobby). Many people actually feel that more people should own guns in order to protect themselves and scare criminals from committing crimes. An example of this type of mindset is the city of Kennesaw, Georgia.

"In 1982 the city passed an ordinance [Sec 34-21]

In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition, therefore.

Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony. (Wikipedia, Kennesaw, Georgia)"

Basically, what this law says is that every head of a household in Kennesaw, Georgia is required to own a gun as long as he or she is not mentally or physically ill and does not have a criminal history. The reason they passed this law was to let criminals know that the houses they might think about robbing have a very high chance of owning a gun in hopes that it would scare them from committing the crime.

Gun rights activist, David Kopel, says home burglaries in Kennesaw dropped from sixty five before the law to twenty six in 1983 and eleven in 1984 (Wikipedia, Kennesaw, Georgia). These statistics show that when people know that other people have guns, they are less likely to commit crimes. Criminals and thugs prefer that citizens are unarmed and tend to avoid armed citizens. In counties North of New York City, Westchester and Rockland, the local newspaper called the Journal News published a map of all the licensed gun owners in the area. This made the people mad that lived in the area because the maps could help the criminals.. The criminals could now know where to steal guns from if they wanted to and who was safe to rob because they did not have a gun. The Citizens were so mad that they published the names and addresses of the editors of the newspaper. Because of this the paper was forced to hire armed guards to protect the editors from threats.

As this exchange between the people of New York and the Journal News shows, the issue of gun control has become a very emotional and explosive issue. Each time a killing such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurs, the gun control advocates become much more vocal about wanting to change the gun control laws and make them stricter. As a response, the NRA reminds them why more strict laws are not guaranteed to fix things and keep killings from happening. With the Sandy Hook Elementary School incident recently happening, we find ourselves in the same situation as always with people wanting to keep criminals from getting guns and making stricter gun control laws.

No member of my family nor I own a gun. So my opinions are not biased based on the ownership of guns. There are strong arguments for having stricter gun control laws and keeping them as they are now with stricter enforcement. However, one cannot simply ride the fence. As a citizen whose family does not own a gun, my opinion is that gun control laws should remain mostly as they are with some changes centered on automatic and assault weapons. The basic premise behind the position being supported is that guns do not kill people, people kill people with the help of guns. Although guns are highlighted as a very popular way for people to kill other people, it is very simple to kill people with tools other than guns such as knifes, hammers, bats, poisons, and shovels. The argument that correlated with this is the question, "Should we make people get background checks to buy things such as pocket knives, shovels, kitchen knives, rat poison, and fertilizers"? All of these things can be used to kill people. If people are restricted from buying guns and are still capable of killing, they could do it almost just as easily with. The question becomes, "Where does it end"? It is reasonable, however, to restrict civilians’ access to machine guns, fully automatic guns, and semi-automatic guns. The average person does not need one of these examples to defend a family and have very little use other than killing people. Having background checks for all purchases of guns also seems reasonable. Why have background checks at all if the person who fails a background check when trying to buy a gun from a licensed dealer can just go to a gun show and buy a guy there instead? However, the government cannot protect each one of us individually and at all times, so we should have the right to own a gun to protect our families.

The extreme view of those who want to get rid of all guns is not reasonable or practical. There are seventy to eighty million Americans who currently own guns (11 facts about guns). These are only the ones we know about that have registered their guns so the number is probably a lot higher. Many people currently own guns by buying them on the street without having them registered. For the government to even attempt at getting rid of all the guns in the United States is impractical.

Another problem with the American government trying to get rid of all the guns and not allowing any more sales of guns is that it would hurt businesses that sell guns and hurt an already struggling economy. In 2012, the firearm industry contributed 31.8 billion dollars to the United States economy (Velasco). Stopping the sale of guns would also hurt the hunting part of the economy in America. Hunting has a long tradition in America and is enjoyed by millions of people in our Country who spend money doing it. According to the Congressional Sportsman’s Foundation report in 2002: "The total impact of hunting to the U.S. economy was $67.6 billion, hunters spend $605 million on hunting dogs annually, well more than the $513 million skiers spend on ski equipment, each year hunters spend more money on food for hunting trips than Americans spend on Domino’s pizza, over a half million jobs in America are supported by hunters, and the $2.4 billion in annual federal income-tax money generated by hunters’ spending could cover the annual paychecks of 100,000 troops."

Gun control is a very important topic for our Country to continue to consider and debate. Knowing all of the facts and impacts of potential laws is important. One thing is certain; we all want to feel safer and to be able to protect our families. We also want to stop the senseless killings that have been happening in America. Gun control laws are part of the solution and we should stop allowing civilians to purchase assault weapons and ammunition clips with many rounds. We should also make anyone buying a gun go through a background check. However, stricter laws than this would not be necessary if they were enforced. We also need to address the social issues like violence on television and video games and taking care of our mentally ill citizens. Hopefully, these actions will lead to a safer Country for all of us.