Is the Right to Bear Arms Wrong - Case Study Example

Is the Right to Bear Arms Wrong? Gun control opponents begin by quoting the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “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” (“The Constitution”, 2006). This, they argue, as were all of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was added by the Founding Fathers so as to provide a more clear definition of the specific rights guaranteed to Americans. Further, they suggest gun control advocates consider the Second Amendment to be “obsolete; or is intended solely to guard against suppression of state militias by the central government and therefore restricted in scope by that intent; or does not guarantee a right that is absolute, but one that can be limited by reasonable requirements” (Krouse, 2002). Of course, read in context, this passage clearly refers to the right to bear arms as a part of the need for a militia, which we have; it’s called the National Guard. Why would have the Founders have so carefully worded the Second Amendment in this way? The word ‘gun’ cannot be found in the Constitution. It refers to arms. Does that mean we have the right to bear nuclear or chemical armaments? The topic of Gun Control is controversial and the debate surrounding it often emotional usually centering on differing interpretations of the Constitution. This discussion will examine the intent of the authors of the Second Amendment as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing arguments on the volatile issue of gun control. In the opinion of gun control opponents, the right to own arms was of supreme importance to the Founders given that it was listed second only after the freedom of religion and speech was documented in the First Amendment. The Founders knew that by ensuring the right to own arms, citizens would have the ability to protect themselves from that which might endanger their life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. This could include bodily protection from persons and animals or from an oppressive government that threatened the freedoms outlined in the Constitution. “The Second Amendment reflects the founders’ belief that an armed citizenry, called the ‘general militia’ was a necessary precaution against tyranny by our own government and its army. The idea that government has a constitutional right to disarm the general citizenry is totally foreign to the intent of the Constitution’s framers” (Reynolds & Caruth III, 1992). Gun-control proponents, according to the words of opponents, decry the evils of gun ownership every time a tragedy such as Columbine High School or Virginia Tech occurs and though they would like to see every gun taken out the hands of law-abiding citizens, seldom is an enforceable, workable plan offered that would curb gun violence. Disarming citizens, they say, would be next to impossible because there are more than 140 million guns in the U.S., a third of which are handguns. Attempting to disarm criminals is a great plan in some fairy-tale land but is a fruitless venture in the real world. “The ratio of people who commit handgun crimes each year to handguns is 1:400; that of handgun homicides to handguns is 1:3,600. Because the ratio of handguns to handgun criminals is so high, the criminal supply would continue with barely an interruption” (Department of Commerce, 1986: 171). The prohibition of guns in an effort to diminish criminal activity is as reasonable solution in much the same way the prohibition of alcohol would diminish the occurrences of driving while intoxicated. Gun control opponents actually suggest that more guns in the community would reduce gun violence, that if everyone, evidently including high school students, carried handguns, everyone else would be afraid to use theirs. To gun control advocates, that is such a twisted and dangerous manipulation of logic and common sense, it is not worthy of rebuttal. The citizens of the country no longer have a need for arms such as they did 230 years ago. No hostile Indians and little threat from wild animals; the government is stable and elected by a democratic process and the citizens of the country have the most powerful armed force ever assembled by humankind in addition to several levels of law enforcement that protect it. It is also argued that the right to own guns has become a detriment to the safety of society which is in opposition to the intentions of the Founders. Gun control opponents do accept that this is at least a somewhat valid argument but argue that the underlying rationale for the right to keep and bear arms remains an essential element for the protection of individual freedoms, which the Founders foresaw. An example, they say, can be found the first time gun control was enacted in the U.S. Following the Civil War, many Southern states passed a law that forbade blacks from owing firearms. Because of this, they had no means by which to protect themselves from radical white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Today, minorities of all descriptions including Muslim and homosexuals are better able to protect themselves from hate groups because of their constitutionally guaranteed right to own firearms. Many examples of human rights violations have been documented in all parts of the world following laws that banned citizens from owning guns. In 1911, Turkey enacted gun control legislation which led to the extermination of 1.5 million unarmed Armenian citizens of that country by 1917. In 1929, the Soviet Union enacted gun control. From that year until 1953, over 20 million unarmed people identified as political non-conformists were murdered by the state. Approximately 20 million citizens in China were killed for the same reason from 1948 to 1952 following gun control enacted in 1935. (Fulk, 1993) Gun control was enacted by the Nazi regime of Germany in 1938. From that time until the end of World War II in 1945, untold millions of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, politically-defined mentally ill people, political non-conformists and others considered less than ‘normal’ were exterminated. In 1956, Cambodia enacted gun control which led to the eradication of more than a million of its ‘educated’ citizens from1975 to 1977. Similar genocidal events occurred following gun control laws enacted in Guatemala in 1964 and Uganda in 1970 (Fuller, 2005). What groups such as the National Rifle association do not explain is how any of these instances are relevant to or reflects the current situation in the U.S. Gun advocates believe that safety and security is dependent on the right to bear arms. Police departments are under no legal obligation to protect anyone or any group and usually are only able to react to a crime that has already occurred, take a report and investigate. “Governmental police forces were created to prevent and break up riots, and to keep a general sense of public order. They were never designed to stop criminal acts against individuals and, accordingly, they do this job poorly” (Fulk, 1993). There is about one police officer available for every 3,000 citizens in a given city; therefore, personal safety is the responsibility of each person alone (Fulk, 1993). Gun ownership proponents argue that the reasons guns have not been outlawed are many. This action would violate the Constitution, impair hunter’s rights and take away the right to protect one’s family, property or self. However, advocates of gun control say they only question the need for people to own firearms that are not primarily designed for sporting purposes such as hunting. Most American’s agree that the Second Amendment does allow law-abiding citizens to own guns for protection and hunting. The debate, however, seldom applies to hunter’s rights. Outlawing handguns outright would affect hunters as well as people that simply wish to protect themselves. Many suggest that handguns serve little purpose except to shoot people. However, hunters regularly use handguns as a protection against snakes and to hunt game animals. Outside of the banning of handguns, hunters have little cause to worry that gun-control advocates will try to take their rifles and shotguns away. According to a report by the National Institute of Justice, recreational use is the most frequent reason given for the purchase of a firearm. Approximately 35 percent of gun owners identify themselves as hunters. More than 30 million hunters purchase permits or licenses and nearly 20 million take part in sporting activities involving firearms each year according to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Gun Control Act of 1968 states that “the purpose of federal firearm regulation is to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in the ongoing effort to reduce crime and violence” (Zimring, 1975). Hunters can take comfort in the fact the Act also states, “the intent of the law is not to place any undue or unnecessary burdens on law-abiding citizens in regard to the lawful acquisition, possession, or use of firearms for hunting, trapshooting, target shooting, personal protection, or any other lawful activity” (Zimring, 1975). Hunters should not be concerned the sport of hunting itself is under serious threat even from gun-control advocates. The hallmark of American society, in which its citizens have historically taken great pride, is the fact that they are self-reliant and strongly defend personal liberties. Gun control is but one case in point of an American society that is moving away from these attributes which have defined the nation’s ideals and towards the belief that the government can best deal with its problems according to gun control opponents. Some people choose to accept threats to their well-being as their fate then depend on the justice system to make everything right. Others, however, choose to defend themselves and their property. Both personal choices are the right of every American, at least for now. Many American citizens would throw away hard fought for freedoms by denying the constitutionally guaranteed right of gun ownership. They would do so without regard to the possible genocidal consequences as exhibited by historical examples or without concern for the safety of their neighbors and countrymen. Opponents of gun control often employ John Stuart Mills’ “Harm Principle” as one justification for owning firearms. They point to statistics which demonstrate that most gun owners do not use them to commit crimes therefore should not be, according to the principle, restricted by law to possess guns. Laws that inhibit or prohibit individual autonomy when their actions are causing no harm is an example of a free state violating its moral obligation to the people it represents and overstepping the limits of legislative powers given to it by the people. However, as Hugh Lafollette argues in Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, while using the harm principle to determine whether or not the government’s intervention into personal decisions is legitimate, factors of degree and probability that a person’s actions might harm others must be considered as well. It’s a delicate and arguable balance. For instance, automobiles and tobacco cause many deaths worldwide every day but driving and smoking is legal. On the other hand, the possession of nuclear weapons, which have caused no deaths in more than half a century, is illegal. When balancing individual freedom and the potentially harmful effect of that freedom on society, the right to own guns is outweighed by the destructive consequences. “The most important problem raised in the scholarly debate concerning bans on guns is intentional deaths: most of the anti-gun literature is sharply focused on the idea that guns make deliberate acts of violence more likely. This is the sort of risk that makes them especially dangerous objects” (Lafollette p. 317). The intention of automobiles, for example, is for purposes related to transportation while guns are bought for one main reason, to potentially be used to shoot someone. “No one would deny that a liberal state, even the relatively constrained state of wide liberalism, may prohibit activities that kill or maim others” (Lafollette p. 317). The concept that the easy access to firearms, such as the case in the United States, has an important impact on the homicide rates in that country is supported by the preponderance of the evidence. “Gun control supporters offer empirical evidence of a positive correlation between murder rates and the availability of guns (especially handguns)” (Lafollette p. 332). Nearly two thirds of all homicides taking place in the U.S. involve a firearm. In the year 2002, more than 3000 American children died as a result of guns, mostly handguns. That breaks down to 50 children being shot and killed each week or eight per day, one every three hours. Four to five times this many are wounded from gunfire. These numbers are startling enough. Now insert the more than 5000 kids under 18 killed by guns in 2005 and the figures jump to nearly 100 per week, 15 per day and 1 every hour and a half. American children are more at risk from firearms than the children of any other industrialized nation. Compare this with Britain where 19 children were killed by guns in 2005 and Japan where none were killed. Both of these countries, as opposed to the U.S. have enacted strict gun control laws (“Statistics” 2005). We, as a society, are continuously growing toward open-mindedness in both our legislation and our minds. Lawmakers have altered rules regarding abortion, divorce, homosexuality and controlled substances for the good of society. Gun control advocates generally want the weapon that kills the most people, handguns, to be illegal but are willing to compromise on rifles and shotguns. In this way, the right to bear arms is protected and so are the thousands that die from handguns every year. Of course, when reading the Second Amendment in context, only armed militias have the right to keep and bear arms. However, given the current strong emotions tied to the issue and the popularity of guns in this country, a compromise is the only solution. . To make the case for upholding the widely perceived ‘right’ to bear arms by allowing rifles and shotguns of a certain length while banning handguns and assault rifles seems the sensible solution and a fight that could be won. This tact has proven effective in other countries such as Britain and many other European nations. Those countries that ban handgun use have a much lower homicide rate than does the U.S. Works Cited “(The) Constitution: The Bill of Rights.” Cornell Law School. (2006). November 21, 2008 Department of Commerce (Bureau of Census). Statistical Abstract of the United States (1986). Washington: Government Printing Office. Fulk, Austin. “Gun Control vs. Our Freedoms.” Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberties. (1993). November 21, 2008 Fuller, Al. “Gun Control Revisited.” Odessa FactSheet. Vol. 44. Los Altos, CA: The American Horse. (July 23, 2005). November 21, 2008 Kopel, David B. ( “Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control.” Cato Institute. Cato Policy Analysis No. 109. July 11, 1988). November 21, 2008 Krouse, William. “Gun Control.” Congressional Research Service. (October 3, 2002). November 21, 2008 Lafollette, Hugh. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies) Wiley-Blackwell. New York: Oxford University Press, November 21, 2008 Reynolds, Morgan O. and  Caruth, W. W. III. “Myths about Gun Control.” Policy Report. National Center for Policy Analysis. No. 176. (December 1992). November 21, 2008 “Statistics: Gun Violence in Our Communities.” National Health Administration Health Information Network. (2005) November 21, 2008 Zimring, Franklin E. “Firearms And Federal Law: The Gun Control Act Of 1968.” Journal of Legal Studies. (1975). November 21, 2008 Read More