Stand Your Ground Research Paper

United States is a country that has problems with gun control, and this issue has many debates between whether or not people should be allowed to carry a gun on them. This free county not only for speech and religion, but also allows people to have the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment of the United States was written by our Founding Fathers,“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” (Government). The main purpose of the Second Amendment when our Founding Fathers wrote this amendment was to help the American citizens to defend themselves from the government at that time, and other countries from invading their properties. However,

I don’t particularly know where my hatred for guns stems from. For as long as I could remember, I always hated guns, I had never understood nor comprehended the purpose of them. Guns do not belong in the hands of civilians; guns should be for military and hunting purposes solely. They are very dangerous weapons. This was evident in the article “America 's gun problem, explained” by German Lopez. I could not agree more with many of the statements and arguments proposed in the article. One particular argument resonated with me, Lopez made the argument that “More guns mean more gun deaths. Period.” He proposed several data to show that research supports the idea that more guns means more gun death in the United States. The chart from Mother Jones demonstrates that when observing gun ownership and gun deaths state-by-state, you observe a positive relationship between the two variables. High gun ownership rates correlates with increases in gun deaths. Another research by the Harvard School of Public Health 's Injury Control Research Center found that when controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, areas with more guns have more gun deaths. These evident

We have had several of the worst mass shootings in our nation's history in quick succession over the past few years. Certain legal restrictions and acts from our government could have prevented numerous deaths. Common sense background checks and limitations to cartridge size and assault weapons would surely have saved many lives at the Las Vegas Massacre, but certain men and women claim that these restrictions violate their second amendment right. They claim that guns aren't the problem. That guns don't kill people, people kill people. So limiting access to devastating guns is just avoiding the problem. The Second Amendment right presumably violated by common sense gun control is “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” (Second Amendment). The Second Amendment states that for the need of a well regulated militia to protect the security of the free state and the right for the people to keep and bear arms. Militias have been inactive for decades so in a sense the intent of the amendment is no longer relevant. Based on the 2nd Amendment, the Constitution is not still a valuable and viable document in modern America because it stands in the way of thorough background checks, training courses, and its vague wording and absolute intent make it inefficient to maintain peace and order and should be amended “To the People of the United

Using this definition, a 2016 study published in the journal Violence and Victims reported that 292 mass shooting incidents took place worldwide between 1966 and 2012; nearly one-third of these were in the United States.”(DiLascio, 2017). The statistics are the answer to whether or not limiting firearms in The United States will help in the overall goal of limiting firearm violence. Other Countries such as England and Japan have more regulations on firearms and it limits the firearm related murders in those Countries. “Have some of the tightest gun control measures in the world, also feature some of the world’s lowest gun homicide rates (per 100,000 people, 0.04 killings and 0.03, respectively).The United States, by contrast, has a rate of 3.42 gun murders per 100,000 people-100 times greater than England or Japan” (Ballaro, 2016). Over the years gun crime has decreased a lot. “ Although gun crime declined steadily throughout the 1990s and early 2000s-thanks in part, perhaps, to the assault weapons ban still in force at the time-it increased sharply in 2005 and has been on a steady rise since. In 2008, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group of 300 US mayors, found that homicides from handguns were highest in states with the most lenient gun laws” (Ballaro,

The Second Amendment states 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”.1 It is important to understand that the Second Amendment was created in order to allow the American people to form militias in response to a tyrannical government attempting to suppress the American way of life. In order for Americans to form militias, they must uphold their freedom to bear arms as a

The second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of people to bear arms and was adopted in 1791. It guarantees all Americans "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It is more described as supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state. Former Chief Justice of the United States, Warren E. Burger writes an essay regarding “The Right To Bear Arms,” that originally appeared in the Parade Magazine in the 1990’s that questions if “The Right To Bear Arms,” is an outdated idea. Burger argument is that the gun control would lower if handguns were lowered. He also talks about the”Militias,” which is an army that protects the security of the state. Our “State Militias,” in our time, serves as a huge national defense.

As of 2014 the only states that still abide by the duty to retreat are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. Due to the elimination of the duty to retreat self-defense concept or the underuse of the duty to retreat self- defense concept in many states; recently the Stand Your Ground Law has become one of the most controversial and infamous laws in the United States(Thomson Reuters,2014).

First, I will discuss the multiple different interpretations that people have. For many years, practically from the ratification of the amendment, there has been many interpretations. Some people believe that the amendment is meant to provide for everyone's rights, and the other side argues that the amendment is meant to provide for individual rights. The other reason that I will be discussing surrounding the controversy of the 2nd amendment, is the gun violence surrounding the public. There have been many school shootings over the past years, with hundreds of deaths. Many people want to make concealing and crying a gun illegal and want only authorized personnel to carry a weapon, these include police officers, military members, and some private organizations such as the FBI and the CIA. But organizations like the NRA are gaining supporters to fight against this movement to remove/revise the 2nd

The United States Constitution is a social contract between the U.S. government and its citizens, which promises their [the citizens’] rights and liberties will be protected. The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that every citizen has the Right to Bear Arms; moreover, it means that an individual has the right to defend him or herself from physical harm. States are passing Stand Your Ground laws, which are similar to the Castle Doctrine (one has the right to defend oneself in the confines of his or her home), but the Stand Your Ground laws extend the range; instead, people may defend themselves using deadly force in any area they are permitted access (Jealous, 2013; Cox, 2013; Moore, 2012). Stand Your Ground laws contain flaws wherein predators or vigilantes may twist the law to their benefit, yet the Stand Your Ground laws are meant to justify the deeds victims must perform in order to defend themselves. Stand Your Ground laws are beneficial through their fundamental purpose, but how defendants are abusing the laws and how critics claim that the presence of a gun influences the victim’s decisions during an attack are detrimental to the enhancement of the laws.

The Second Amendment grants a United States citizen right of gun ownership to individuals for purposes that also include self-defense. In today’s modern day, citizens debate about whether the Second Amendment protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms, or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations such as the National Guard. However the Amendment was effectively acknowledged in light of. that the government should not have the ability the privilege of the general population to keep and carry weapons, any more than it to have the ability to shorten the right to speak freely or restrict the free practice of religion. The Second Amendment initially connected just to the national government, leaving the states to direct weapons as they saw fit.

America has always prided itself on being the land of the free. Our national Constitution and Bill of Rights have ensured that the people of America maintain their basic rights. Nevertheless, many of the rights guaranteed in these historic documents are often the subject of heated debate. The right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-incrimination, the First Amendment’s protection of speech and petitioning activity, all of these issues have been subject to contentious arguments in courts of law and the courts of public opinion. Of late, however, the most lengthy, argumentative and noisy debates have focused on gun control. Some people think that

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “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 is clearly saying all citizens have the right to be able to own and carry a weapon or firearm. On June 26, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the United States Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves (Cornell 1). This is showing how our founding fathers supported the right to bear arms.

In Australia, they had a similar problem that we faced, but they implemented strict gun control after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1999, where 35 civilians were killed. These new laws were shown to be incredibly effective at curbing gun crime and a mass shooting has not occurred in Australia for almost 20 years. According to a 2010 study done by Andrew Leigh, a former professor at Australian National University and an Australian House of Representatives member, and Christine Neil of Wilfrid Laurier University, the new restrictions on guns in Australia have also reduced gun homicide and suicide rates by a whopping 60% and have cut gun deaths in half, despite the fact that the Australian population grew 14% in the last 20 years. As if this wasn’t enough proof that strict gun laws are effective, studies in the U.S. also show that more guns has a direct correlation with increased gun violence. Heather Timmons, in her article “Mapped: The US States With the Most Gun Owners-and Most Gun Deaths”, shows that states with more guns and weaker gun control have up to 33% more crime compared to states with strict gun control. Louisiana, a state with a gun death rate of 19 for every 100,000 people, has 45% of the population owning guns, while Hawaii, a state with a gun death rate of 2.2 for every 100,000 people, has only 6.7% of the population owning guns. The connection is clear, but gun lobbyists

Molly Ivins claims to take what the second amendment says literally, but she does not do this very well. The second amendment says, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”(qtd in Ivins323). Notice it says nothing about the people who own guns having to be part of the well-regulated militia, which she claims here, “It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, that is, the armed force, including the National Guard.”(Ivins324). The amendment truly just says that in order to have a militia people must have the right to own guns, which is something the author does not include in her interpretation. Where she was going with her interpretation can be seen and it does make sense in a way, but in the end it just seems like she made it so it fit here viewpoint. Ivins also say, “Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia.”(Ivins323). This should not even be included, because of the fact that fourteen-year-old boys cannot even legally own guns. This means that they would have gotten them illegaly, so if

Many advocates of restrictions on the right of individuals to own and carry arms promote the interpretation that the second amendment is meant only to protect the organized militia units, which they typically argue, are now subsumed under the National Guard. For advocates of this interpretation there would be no individual right to own and carry