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Back to Subjects - Political Science

Second Amendment

Second Amendment The Second Amendment to the Constitution gave United States citizens the right to bear arms. Although, the Second Amendment stated: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. However, the framers could not foresee the type of violence we have in our cities today. Innocent citizens have and are being brutally killed due to this amendment. Stricter gun control laws must be enacted to receive these types of weapons. Background checks for gun buyers were implemented a year and a half ago, more than 4,600 people who were supposed to be prevented from buying guns bought them anyway because their background checks were not completed in time, according to ABC news. The NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) is supposed to inspect the criminal, citizenship, and mental background of all gun buyers (Yahoo News). However, if authorities cannot finish the checks in three days, the buyer gets the gun by default—even if he/she is a convicted felon or illegal alien (Yahoo News). On April 20, 1999, Columbine School was terrorized by gunfire. Twelve students and one teacher was brutally slain by two seniors of the high school. According to the APB News, hundreds of people were intended to die. After the two students gunned down their classmates and teacher, they shot and killed themselves. At this time, the guns used in the shooting are said to have been purchased from unlicensed dealers at gun shows, according to Yahoo News. For this reason and many others, stricter gun laws should be enacted to be able to purchase these types of weapons. In Asheville N.C., two men are named in a five-count federal indictment for attempting to kill an on-duty FBI agent at the Southeast Bomb Task Force compound. Carringer, one of the gunmen involved, was believed to be a suspect in a fatal bombing at a Birmingham Ala. abortion clinic (APB news). I believe that although he was only a suspect in the bombing, his weapon should have been repossessed before he could have done harm to anyone, such as the FBI agent. On the morning of February 29, 2000 a 6 year-old girl was attending class and was shot to death by a 7 year-old classmate. She was killed because of an argument the day before the shooting, according to The Monroe Evening News. However, she did not deserve to die. How many more innocent people will have to die before the government begins to regulate gun control? Guns are becoming one of the top issues in the newspapers (The Monroe Evening News). There have been 394 incidents of students bringing guns to school in the United States since 1998 (Sutton). Legislators say that the law cannot prevent the tragedy of the fatal shootings in the schools (The Detroit Free Press). Furthermore, the legislators say that the only way that the tragedies could be prevented is to require a search of every student going to elementary school. However, I disagree, if the schools had the proper security that should be required, none of these incidences would have taken place. The students of the schools should be searched on a daily basis. The schools are supposed to be a safe place for the children, but are actually places were some children go and die. Due to the recent school shootings, politicians urged the voters to make gun violence an issue in this year’s past election. President Clinton expressed outrage over the fact that a 7 year-old was able to obtain a .32 caliber gun to kill someone with it. He said that this illustrates why Congress must act now on his proposal to tighten restrictions on handguns and implement safety measures such as child-proof locks (The Detroit News). I feel that childproof locks are not the answer to this problem. A child will be able to figure out how to work it anyways. Other countries, such as China and Japan, have stricter gun control laws. These two countries combined have only a quarter of the amount of shootings that the United States acquire on a yearly basis (The Metro Times). There is said to be only one other country that has more shootings on a yearly basis other than the United States and that is Cuba (The Metro Times). Loopholes in our national restrictions on gun purchases and ownership account for the high numbers of guns falling into the wrong hands and contribute to many gun violence tragedies (rj.org). Felons buying or selling firearms were involved in more than 46% of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) investigations involving gun shows (csgv.org). Another case of the loopholes stated is that the weapons in question had been involved in assaults, robberies, burglaries, homicides, and other crimes, according to The Jewish Religious Actions Committee. Congress’s failure to act on the issue of gun control is unacceptable. Major gun control legislation has not passed since 1994 when the Brady Act mandated a five-day waiting period on most handgun purchases and, despite the recent series of horrific shootings, Congress refused to act. Meanwhile we are still without new gun control measures. Gun control advocates have proposed a number of measures that would help restrict easy access to guns. The gun show loophole allows individuals (as opposed to federally licensed dealers) to sell guns from their “private collections” at gun shows without background checks for purchases. A loophole in the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, which banned domestic production of high capacity clips, allows the importation of high-capacity magazines made before the date of enactment (rj.org). Foreign companies have exploited the loophole by dumping large clips they claim are “pre-ban” (csgv.org). In 1992, lawmakers in over thirty states have enacted permissive concealed-carry gun laws, which make it legal for citizens to carry concealed handguns (csgv.org). Proponents of these laws assert that citizens carrying concealed guns will deter criminals from committing crimes, but I feel that the more individuals carrying concealed handguns the increase in the likelihood that someone will be injured or killed. In 1998, 16,914 people in the United Stated were killed by guns (guntruths.com). Gun violence claims more than 30,000 lives and injures another 100,000 people annually (biz.yahoo). Gun control advocates have pushed for stricter safety standards since the Columbine shootings. In 1997, more than 32,000 Americans were killed with firearms (vpc.org). 13,522 of the deaths were caused by homicides, and a total of 367 deaths were of undetermined intent (vpc.org). From the years of 1962-1994, race, sex, and age group examine the patterns of overall firearm deaths -homicide, suicide, and unintentional deaths. During this 33 year period, the total number of firearm deaths increased by 130% from 16,720 in 1962 to 38,505 in 1994 (lvrj.com). Suicide and homicide account for almost all gun deaths. As of 1994, this accounted for 94% of the deaths (lvrj.com). Between the years of 1990 and 1994, researchers found that handguns accounted for 89% of firearm homicides and 71% of firearm suicides (vpc.org). A case-control study involving members of a Washington state HMO examined whether the purchase of a handgun from a licensed dealer is associated with the risk of homicide or suicide. The conclusion to this study is that the members of handgun-owning families were twice as likely to die in a suicide or homicide as members of the same age, sex, and neighborhood who had no history of handgun purchases. These increased risks persisted for more than five years after the purchase (vpc.org). In 1991, the percentage of firearm-related deaths increased by 60%. It is estimated that by the year 2003, firearm-related deaths will surpass deaths from motor vehicle-related injuries. In 1991, this was already the case in seven states (California, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Texas, Virginia) and in the District of Columbia (lvrj.com). I feel that this is due to the lenient gun control law in the United States that is causing the increase in firearm related fatalities. Teen murders is becoming an issue in the Las Vegas Valley, which is leaving more families to face the devastation an unexpected death brings and the pain that lingers for the remainder of their lives. Twenty-six youth’s ages 13-19 were slain last year in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Las Vegas police arrested Manuel Arias, 17, for one shootings of a teenage girl. However, countrywide, coroner statistics showed 20 youths were killed in 1994 and 14 in 1995. Of the 60 teens killed between 1994 and 1996, 11 were girls and 49 were boys (lvrj.com). Already this year, five teens have been killed in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Due to the increasing amount of deaths that are caused by firearms, Congress should enact stricter gun control laws. However, they are not and more people are continuing to die on a daily basis due to that matter. Congress is continuously discussing ways of preventing convicted felons, mental patients, and illegal aliens from purchasing firearms, but do not fulfill the voters’ wishes of doing so. I feel that this is the government’s way to prevent the United States from becoming overpopulated, because they are not doing anything to stop this problem. On the other hand, if most of the United States population is killed by gunfire, then where is the tax money going to be derived from? In my opinion, there should be a way to eliminate the section of the Second Amendment that gave the citizens of the United States the right to bear arms. Bibliography: This is a 7 page paper about the Second Amendment (right to bear arms)

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