OverviewThe issue of the letter which I sent was gun control legislation. The recipient of my letter was United States Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio. This issue is an important topic in our country at this time which involves critical and controversial legislation, a large industry and special interest groups. Section 2. Summary of the IssueThe Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution states, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The reason for this Amendment as intended by the founding fathers was to insure that the citizens of the newly formed union could protect themselves from government tyranny and to guarantee the states a right to a militia. As with many other reasons for reform, the colonial authors could never have imagined that weapons would exist such as the ones that were banned in the 1994 Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. The need for gun control legislation was never really a hot topic in the United States until the early 1980s, starting with the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. During the last two decades this issue has sky-rocketed to the top of the list of concerns of the American Glover 2population. After the April 1999, massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado gun control became the topic of much full scale nationalized and media exploited debate in our country, especially in the federal and state Congresses. Even though gun control legislation was already being debated and bills concerning gun control were set to be voted on within days and weeks of the Columbine incident in both federal and state Houses, a new and even stronger waive of calls for reform ripped through the nation. Most called for better control laws, but some called for radical legislation.Section 3. Relation to Course The large gun manufacturing and retail industry is supported by many special interests groups. These groups, like othe...
