The Gun Control in the USA - Research Paper Example

The Gun Control in the USA Introduction The issue of Gun control has formed part of heated debates in the recent past in the United States. Most people argue that the law has made it harder for citizens who are law abiding to carry or own firearms. This comes in contrast with the Gun rights. The gun control law restricts the ownership or purchase of guns despite that fact that the law allows American citizens to acquire guns for sporting purposes or for defense. Different studies have come out strongly indicating that the more the citizens are allowed to own guns the less the crime case. Despite this realization, the liberals have continued to push for the gun control as it increases the voter’s dependency on the government to offer them protection. The political effect has impacted the gun control in that it has shifted the voters leftward leaving the main supporters of the gun control to be the leftists politicians and liberal media (Kleinig & Lafolletee, 17). The Second Amendment The Gun control is now believed to be a limitation or a denial by the government through the congress of the right of the citizens to armed self defense as stated by the Second Amendment of the United States of America Constitution (Kleinig & Lafolletee, 18). The congress have come out strongly using the discredited yet superficially appealing that the less the lawful-owned guns in the hands of the citizens, the fewer the crime cases even though guns have been considered as the main weapons of defense in America. The justification of their argument is that gun control laws result in enormous hardships. A good example is that of May 2012 when a gun control law led to an African American woman to be sentenced to prison for 20 years for just firing warning shots to her husband (Kleinig 280). This case resulted to an outburst of outrage around Florida as most people were against this sentence terming it as being unconscionable. The state has considered coming up with laws that ensure liability in gun manufacturing and cover issues on shooting sports and personal protection. The laws also ensured that the licensed guns remained within the boundaries of the state exempt from the regulations of the federal that include licensing, background checks and registration. Most of the congresses believe that the gun control has potentially resulted to an increase in crime cases related to the use of guns through restricting its primary deterrent which is self defense. Statistics have it that law-abiding citizens in United States who use their guns outnumber the criminals who use guns and the ratio has been placed at approximately 1000 to 1. This means that any withdrawal of guns from the citizens will eliminate the lawful use guns for self defense as well as its deterrent impact (Polsby 35). The same statistics have it that most American use different types of firearms to defend and protect themselves from criminals with the figures being placed at approximately 764, 000 times yearly. The Gun control law to a lager extent conflicts with the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which has the clause that gives citizens the right to bear firearms. The Bill of Rights guarantees citizens the right to bear and keep arms by a virtue of a selective reading of the Bill (Anderson 78). The federal have argued that the statement “a well regulated militia” refers to a Free State security and most Courts of Appeal have claimed that the statement calls for the right to bear fire arms to have the collective state militia’s rights and not individual rights to own weapons as they wish. The congress came up with a law in the year 2005 that offers the gun dealers and manufactures more immunity protecting them from being sued. This followed a heavy lobbying coming from the gun industry and the NRA (Block 45). The PLCAA (The protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act) protects the gun industry even if they are producing guns that can be considered unnecessarily dangerous to the common citizen and they go ahead to sell them recklessly. Civil lawsuits serve two main important roles; offer compensation to citizens who fall victims of bad acts and go further to penalize individual and companies involved in bad behavior. In case a company realizes that it will be forced to pay large sums of money in the event that it poses threats that are considered unreasonable by the law, it will have to come up with a strong incentive in an effort to act better. Such lawsuits prob companies dealing in the manufacturing of guns to have their products safe for the consumers. The lawsuits that make use of the PLCAA loopholes to have the gun industry accountable remain important but are not enough. The Supreme Court has also been involved in this issue about the gun rights and has expanded on the right to bear arms as per the Second Amendment. However, the main responsibility remains with the congress who should work to repeal the PLCAA and call for the gun industry to abide by the same standards of safety and responsibility as the rest of the citizens (Block 48). The congress has also targeted shooting sports and the issue of personal protection. The congress has called for the sporting organization to ban some types of guns that are used in the shooting sports referring to such firearms as semiautomatic guns. The other step was the prohibition against the industries selling large amount of magazine firearms which may not be having legitimate sporting use. Sporting organizations have taken on all issues that are of more immediate concern affecting sportsmen more than the Second Amendment like the wildlife habitat loss (Menza 62). Conclusion The gun control law contradicts the Second Amendment clause on the right to bear arms. As the Amendment gives the citizens the right to own arms on the basis of self protection, the gun control law has it that the more the citizens are allowed to bear arms the more the crime cases. This has been seen as a means by the congress to deny the citizens the right to have guns so as to have political gains as the citizens will have to depend on the state for protection. The congress has achieved this through weakening the gun manufacturing liability and coming up with strict regulations in the issues of shooting sports and personal protection. Work Cited Anderson, Jervis. Guns in American Life. New York: random House, 2000 Block, Irvin. Gun Control: One Way to Save Lives. New York: Public Affairs, 2000 John Kleinig & Hugh Lafolletee. “Gun Control: The Issue.” Criminal Justice Ethics 20 (1), 2001, 17-15 John Kleinig. “Gun Control”. Ethics 110 (2), 2000, 263-281 Menza, Alexander. A White Paper on Handgun Control. N. p., 2000 Polsby, Daniel. “Equal Protcetion.” Reason, 25:5, 2000, pp. 34-38 Read More