Gun Control: Not an Easy Problem for Yes or No
Whether Americans should prohibit the usage of guns is not a new topic, but actually pretty old in debate since the 19th century. Hundreds of movements to implement gun control have happened in history, but none was able to reach its goal on the context of the whole country. Currently, according to report, the number of of gun violence and suicide still continues to rise. Although there is always a part of public who uphold new policies on restricting guns, the dream of an America without gun violence is still not within the foreseeable future.
Definitely, America is the country with most guns in the world- while having 4.43 percent of the world population, Americans own 42 percent of private guns globally. According to a survey in 2007, every one hundred Americans own 88.8 guns, which means nearly every individual has a gun at home. Also, according to data, gun numbers and death rate in the country have direct relationship. In America, homicides by firearm per 1 million people is 29.7, far exceeding 7.7 in Switzerland on the second place and nearly 6 times compared to Canada beside(Vox Explainers, 1-2).
Born in a country without private guns, I will definitely take the side of supporting gun control, for guns provide so many chances to hurt people but only protect in very limited cases. When beginning my research, my first idea is easy-why not just abolish the gun ownership of individuals by introducing new laws? Why not government toughly implement gun control, since most citizens seem to be also on this side? Then, number of Gun violence and suicide will definitely decrease and America will be a much safer country. However, my research told me that gun control is far from an easy problem with Yes or No.
On the context of history, America is special. When the first group of migrants took May Flowers and arrived in America, with guns they were able to defend themselves from the wild and local Indians. Also, in American revolution, without regular army, people in the 13 colonies armed themselves with their own guns to form militia and was finally able defeat British government who implemented heavy taxes. Thus, individually owned weapon is a key element for the establishment of America, which gives guns special meanings to American people. Because of that, the public demanded gun rights to be a part of the Bill of Rights in 1791, as the Second Amendment writing that “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 Second Amendment” from Baidu Baike, P1). This Amendment prevents the expansion of Government power but also becomes the most powerful contradiction of gun control.
The Second Amendment holds nearly absolute power to legislation. For example, City of Chicago has recently formulated the “Responsible Gun Ownership Ordinance”, in light of McDonald and Heller, which restricts gun ownership according to the owner’s identity. However, although the new law aimed to only confine the rights that is equivocal in the Second Amendment, the congress has used the original understanding of the text of the Second Amendment to disprove Heller. By applying those answers to the new Ordinance, the congress concluded that “it(Responsible Gun Ownership Ordinance) is likely unconstitutional and that future gun-control regulations will only be upheld if they respect the full understanding of the contours of the Second Amendment, rather than merely satisfying its narrow holding”. (McGovern, Owen, 471-496). The context has provided the reason why local legislation of gun control would always fail- the Second Amendment signals the foundation of America, so any new local policies can not go against it in any degrees, especially on ruling the rights to own guns.
Besides the existence of the Second Amendment, minor reasons make gun control in America even harder:
First, the Federal government can not correctly control all gun owner’s information, but prevents the responsible citizens from obtaining those information. From the perspective of the researchers, doing research on the topics such as gun suicide or death rate is extremely challenging, because the government has implemented blocks on those information Then, without correct data, researchers can hardly prove the danger of guns with tenable statements and comparison to lead public opinions and promote gun control. On the other side, police are facing the same problem, that they can not find the exact information about the gun owners to to trace the killers(Rosen, Meghan, 16-21). Now for normal citizens, if they even do not know how many guns have been used on vicious purpose, how can they be encouraged to participate in gun control movements?
Furthermore, although more than 50 percent of gun cases happen among blacks, they are always silent in the gun movements. In cases like shooting of Michael Brown by police in Fergusonin or acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, we can see that the colored people, when facing gun violence, hardly stand out to protect themselves by social methods like protest. Instead of claiming the danger of guns, they choose to suffer or even blame the criminals but not gun itself. Also on the other side, due to segregation and media effect, death of colored people by shots are rarely being significantly reported or widely concerned(YOUNGE, GARY, 12-15). Therefore, without the victims of gun violence to stand out, guns seem to be not that lethal to most Americas. People start to feel that shots are far from their families and no more regulations are needed. More seriously, owning weapons itself becomes a kind of common sense, that no one should intervene.
Some distorted reasons against the harms of guns are also influencing part of the public opinions. For example, guns are beneficial rather than harmful because they can protect you and your family from murders. Or, if we implement gun control, only the criminals will have guns because they can still have guns from black market. Actually, most of those opinions are disputable. Listen to Jim Jefferies’s Gun Control gun control talk show. Although it is in the form of comedy, he has made really great arguments about some of the equivocal public points. For the two proposals above, refutation can be- first, you can’t protect your family or even yourself most of the time with your gun, because common people will not take it with them all the time, especially when they go outside, where gun shots happen most often. Second, if gun control becomes successful and all the supplies of guns are cut off, it is true that small part of guns will remain in the black market. However, those guns must become extremely expensive. If the criminals have such big amount of money to buy guns, why do they still want to rob or kill?
Similarly, I have found another distorted argument saying that mental health problem is the source of gun violence(WOLF, CAROLYN REINACH, and JAMIE A. ROSEN, 851-878). In this article, the author disavows controlling guns as a correct strategy to avoid gun violence. Instead, he supposes that the America’s incomplete mental health program leads to people’s wrong usage of guns. At the beginning, the author introduces the gun control laws in New York, Illinois and other states, indicating that most gun control legislation only aim at removing guns from the hands of the mentally ill, and gun shots do decrease. Then, the author shows some major problems of United States’ current medical and mental health professionals, that they should be more refined. With the two arguments above, the passage draws the conclusion that instead of restricting gun ownership, policymakers should focus more on modifying existing restrictive mental health laws and increasing the funding needed to provide adequate mental health services in the community. However,although the article has provided some good points, its supportive data is not strong enough to prove that mental problem is the major reason for gun violence. Can better programs in mental health care really significantly reduce gun violence? My idea is No, because people with mental problems are still only one part of gun murders, but guns have provided too easy access to kill for everyone, which is the fundamental problem.
The last and very important factor stopping gun control movement is the the National Rifle Association (NRA) ‘s involvement. Although first taking neutral position, in1920s of the Northeast, led by parts of members inside, the association first began to get involved in politics and successfully stopped handgun prohibition movement at that time. By then, from the twentieth century to twenty-first, gun rights has become the subjects of intense political, social, and cultural debates. The association has split into two parts: One side contended that there was absolutely no right to arms, while the other side asserted that the right to arms was absolute, that any gun control laws infringed that right. A turning point of the debate is when Heiler and McDonald came to the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court judged the latter to be the winner by reinforcing what had become the American consensus: the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, especially for self-defense, is a fundamental individual right. (Kopel, David B, 1527-1616) Finally, as time goes on, NRA has become an association consisted of gun lovers and beneficiaries, who also owns extremely big political power against any gun regulations. Above has given the reasons why modern laws can only involve in the area to keep guns out of the hands of people who have proven themselves to be dangerous.
Above all, we have talked about reasons why gun control can never be totally implemented in America- the major reason is the Second Amendment, also with lots of other elements in the country. However, we still hope to find better solutions to avoid so many shots happening in current America, given the confinements. Therefore, we want learn from history that how the gun control movements were developed and what their results were. First, in the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration happened, but only resulted in two minimalist federal statutes. Second, after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was made. Although this legislation largely affected the primary federal law, it was still subsequently weakened by the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986. As time goes on, small gun control movements happened consecutively but none had reached its purpose. More and more, legislators began to realize that future with strict gun control is unrealistic, giving the multiple constraints including entrenched opposition in Congress and state legislatures, declining public support, well-organized institutional opposition, and constitutional constraints. Therefore, for the past two decades, policy activity has shifted to the state legislatures and the courts, where concealed carry laws have flourished and the Second Amendment has been recognized as an individual and fundamental right. For example, the Clinton administration managed to pass the Brady Act, requiring background checks on purchases from licensed firearms dealers(VIZZARD, WILLIAM J. 879-904). From the information above, although taking guns away from people is extremely unpractical, there are still other ways we can decrease gun violence. First, advocates of gun control should focus on restricting access to firearms by dangerous persons. Second, more serious laws should be implemented on punishing people who use guns on harmful purposes. Third, gun information should be more open, that gun users’ information should be available for researchers and polices and medias should genuinely report all cases caused by guns. Last, as each state owns different standard on gun regulation, the Federal government ought to make a general amendment, that labels the least extent of gun control over local laws.
Reflection:
This essay has cost me lots of effort to think and revise, from the main thesis to the examples. Firstly, I hope to be a absolute gun control supporter in my essay, since that is what I deem as most efficient way to reduce gun violence. However, after checking lots of data I found out such strategy is so arbitrary and does not fit the America’s environment. Thus, I started to find more moderate way to implement gun control. When choosing my examples, I was confused with which one should be used and in what order I should put them. After reading the works of others, I was able to pretty much link my examples in a fluent thinking. For the second time I revise it, I started to pay more attention on how I can make my thesis correctly supported. I have added lots of conclusive sentences and fixed some minor writing mistakes this time.