The Right to Bear Arms - Essay Example

full Mike Beasley American Gun Culture (English 201 – Essay No. 3) 19 March Introduction America has always been a country of independent-minded people who are aware or conscious of their rights. One hallmark of America is it is a permissive society; anything goes as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. It can be said that America today has a gun culture that dates back to the early days of the nation and this gun culture is enshrined in the Constitution through the Second Amendment which is the right to bear arms. People of yesteryears wanted the means to be able to protect themselves and enforce their sacred rights. However, this culture promotes violence in civil society to a point people are afraid. There is too much violence today; people everywhere they go are rightly concerned of their safety at school, at the mall, at the office, at the church, at a parking lot, at supermarkets, and even along the country’s highways when simple traffic altercations can turn violent in a sudden manner as people vent their road rage on innocent fellow travelers who might cross their path unwittingly. While the debate on guns continues to rage seemingly without an end in sight, politicians, academicians, and concerned citizens who worry about the state of civil society in America today argue for stricter gun controls to reduce this violence. On the other hand, supporters and advocates of the Second Amendment assert their own right to carry guns for protection but unfortunately, this had also bred a culture of violence in which simple arguments can escalate into the use of guns. Further, a permissive gun culture is contributory to the proliferation of guns almost everywhere to the point even people who are supposedly not qualified to have guns carry these guns around with them. This situation is now spinning out of control and so many people argue for more gun regulations. This paper takes this view and argues violence can be reduced through stricter gun control laws. 2. Discussion The right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness as people today now live in a modern and civilized society. This means people need not resort to the use of guns or any other form of violence to settle certain disputes. Moreover, the police are the ones who are properly deputized by law to protect citizens from harm and the Second Amendment is actually an anachronism today because it transfers responsibility of protecting the citizens from the police to the citizens themselves. In other words, the right to bear arms needs to be amended through stricter gun control laws or even rescinded altogether to enable everybody to feel safe wherever they go because a permissive gun culture has allowed even people who are not qualified, authorized, trained, or even threatened to carry guns with them. It is better to let the police handle the situation of keeping the peace and protecting citizens; it does not serve anyone for people to be carrying guns supposed for their own protection. If the police perform their job according to their mandate, then there is no need to carry guns. 2.1 Political issue - the debate about gun controls continues to be divisive in America because this has become not just a police matter but also a major political issue. Politics is the clear reason why guns continue to proliferation due to loose gun control laws which make it easy for people to purchase guns practically from anywhere. In particular, the group of people who are members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) wanted the attorney general of the country, Mr. Eric Holder, to be sued and cited for contempt for allegedly being biased against the Second Amendment (Spitzer para. 1). The NRA is a powerful political lobby and also has many influential members among its roster; many politicians belong to the NRA with some of them advocating for its aim of protecting the right to bear arms because this is politically a very good move on the part of politicians to win votes, especially during election time. It can be argued the NRA as an influential lobby has become anachronistic itself as the modern world need not rely on the use of guns just to assert certain Constitutional rights. Its argument on this regard rings hollow because defending this supposed sacred right to carry guns has contributed to the proliferation of guns and the promotion of a gun culture that has in many instances resulted into senseless violence by deranged people who were not qualified to even own or carry guns in the first place. The NRA has taken great lengths to politicize this issue to the extent of trying to demonize those who want to curtail the rights of NRA members who also happen to be electorates that vote during the elections. This makes the issue of gun control and ownership not only political but also a highly-charged emotional issue. It is quite difficult to carry a sensible debate when people repeatedly refuse to listen to reason. 2.2 Vigilantism – the arguments of the NRA for its members and other law-abiding citizens to be allowed to continue carrying guns or firearms supposedly for crime prevention, self-defense, hunting activities, and other leisure gun-related sports may have some validity but the main argument for carrying guns which is for self-defense purposes is a return to old times when there is no strong government and there is an absence of adequate police presence such that ordinary citizens need to carry guns for their own protection. This is just another newer form of vigilantism which no longer is in keeping with the modern times in a civilized society where it is the government that is primarily tasked to carry out this social need for the protection of citizens. This is akin to letting the citizens take the law into their own hands and negates the very essence of a functional, liberal, and representative democracy. However, it is convincing to hear Ben Shapiro about the gun problem and not get swayed by his arguments about some areas in America that have a lot of gun control laws but still the level of violent crime keeps going up but the right way is to remove guns altogether (Shapiro interview). 2.3 Public safety issue – there had been many news stories in the past how people committed mass shootings of innocent victims of which there are even more recent ones that happened. Easy access to guns has encouraged many people to buy, obtain, or procure guns in which many of these same people do not have the right training or adequate reason for having a gun, including even high-powered weapons for which these people did not have a need for. It is the very proliferation of guns which makes America unsafe and promotes gun violence as people see nothing wrong with owning a gun when gun ownership is contributory to so many gun-related deaths because some gun owners were irresponsible owners. There is no sure way to limit gun ownership only to qualified people and so stricter gun control laws will help. Although the arguments put forward by opponents of gun controls are quite logical, lucid, and even convincing, the bottom line is that everybody will feel safer is all people do not have guns or access to guns. People like to think having guns offer them protection and a lot of statistics had been cited to show proof how banning guns did not lower the crime rates. This had happened in Australia and also in Great Britain when crime rates increased instead as criminals know their intended victims are powerless to stop them anyway (Snyder para. 2). It is also often mentioned how citizens deprived of guns as means to defend themselves left the people (law-abiding citizens) vulnerable to their own governments tyranny and criminals too. Shapiro in his interview made a dangerous assertion of how government is capable of potential tyranny if its own citizens are unarmed and so by this specious argument, justifies a continuation of the Second Amendment even if the citizens themselves do not need guns just to protect themselves from their own government. However, a gun ban will work if it is total and gun laws are enforced strictly and uniformly through the country, with no exceptions. The idea is to eliminate the need for guns altogether by making guns irrelevant (Spitzer 11). 2.4 Second Amendment is archaic – this constitutional amendment was the product of revolutionary times in the past when Americans were fighting for their independence from the autocratic British monarchy and it can be argued it was fully justified at that time in history. In modern times, this particular amendment has outgrown its usefulness or utility as a counter to any perceived incipient government tyranny and so this amendment should be stricken off the legal books right now. Its continued retention is a source of contention and division among the American citizens and one way to resolve this issue is strike this amendment off the books. It is a bit surprising how the United States Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the Second Amendment when it reversed stringent gun control laws of the District of Columbia as a violation of the right to bear arms for self-defense. The Supreme Court had backtracked on a 70-year history of jurisprudence and legal precedents when it should have gone to uphold gun control laws as a sensible way to keep Americans safe (Cornell & Kozuskanich 12). 2.5 Mass shootings – these tragic events happened almost anywhere in public places. These tragic events are preventable or avoidable if only gun control laws were in effect that could have deprived the perpetrators from committing these horrible crimes. While most gun advocates will argue that having guns could have served as a deterrent to these criminals if the potential victims were likewise armed to defend themselves, this argument merely makes the entire situation more dangerous because the victims will fight back and a gun fight will ensue which could also conceivable claim more innocent lives instead of saving these innocents. In a sense, banning guns outright is the reverse of the same argument which is to prevent all the violence from ever happening in the first place. The shootings at Virginia Tech may not have happened if gun laws are strictly enforced because the shooter in this case would have been diagnosed as mentally unstable during an attempt to obtain the guns (Thomas 18). 2.6 Ease of access to guns – as the film documentary by Michael Moore showed only too well, anybody can easily get access to guns with very minimal documentary requirements or even cursory background checks on whether the purchaser has previous criminal records or even mentally and emotionally unstable as to shoot innocent people on sight (Moore, film). In the film, the ease of access to guns is a very alarming illustration of a permissive gun culture which intentionally or not, has put everyone in America at risk to dangerous persons. This is a reason why the Obama Administration has promised to fast track some legislation to correct these legal loopholes by requiring potential gun buyers to first wait a few weeks before a gun license will be issued, raising the minimum age requirements, and conducting more thorough background checks and investigations on all new gun license applicants (Shear para. 1). 3. Conclusion Contrary to the claims by gun control opponents, the countries where gun control laws were strictly imposed enjoyed lowered rates in violent crimes. Statistics can be misleading at times and although there is no clear-cut correlation between crime rates and gun ownership, it is still far better and safer for a society to be without guns than for a society where everybody has a gun. Many advocates of gun ownership will state it is for self-defense purposes only but owning a gun is equivalent or tantamount to eventually using it someday, somewhere because what is the essence or logic of owning a gun if one will not use it or find a reason for using it? Even saying owning a gun is purely for fun and leisure only makes it still subject to accidents in which people had died due to mishandling, children playing with a loaded gun, for suicides, carelessness or whatever reason that owning a gun justifies its purchase and ownership. There are two ways of resolving this issue of gun ownership: either arm everybody to the teeth and hope people will not shoot each other or legislate gun control laws and enforce them strictly. Works Cited Cornell, Saul A. and Nathan Kozuskanich. The Second Amendment on Trial: Critical Essays on District of Columbia v. Heller. Amherst, MA, USA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. Print. Bowling for Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. United Artists, 2002. Film. Shapiro, Benjamin. “Ben Shapiro Debates Piers Morgan on Gun Control.” Interview with Piers Morgan. 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. . Shear, Michael D. “Obama vows fast action in new push for gun control.” New York Times, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. . Snyder, Kristie. “Gun Control Doesnt Work.” Discerning the Times Digest 2.2, Feb. 2000. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. . Spitzer, Robert J. “The Gun Dispute.” American Educator 23.2 (1999): 10-15. Spitzer, Robert J. “The NRA’s Fast and Furious Gun Walking.” Huffington Post, 29 Jun. 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. . Thomas, Evan. “Making of a Massacre.” Newsweek (Atlantic Edition) 149.18 (2007): 18. Print. Read More