Craig Williams Kate Simonsen ENG 112 82PR 03 November 2015Guns Don’t Kill but People Do!Many decades ago, the founders of America escaped from England to escape the strict rules that were being forced on them by their rulers. The men of this new found land convened to discuss their rules and rights to run their newly created government. They create a bill declaring the basic rights that every man in the country could have. Some of the basic rights that were created was the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, free speech. One of the most important rights created was the right to keep and bear arms. However, in these times of increased violence with guns, many people in America believe that the possession of guns is …show more content…
The public tend to focus on the amount of people killed or wounded by guns, but not the amount of people that avoided being harmed because they had a firearm readily available. Police officers carry handguns in plain view every day, but are never questioned about whether they should or should not be allowed to carry a handgun. Many police officers go their entire career without upholstering their handgun to defend themselves or a civilian. Why do you think this happens? The average criminal is not going to violently approach an officer knowing that they have an effective way of defending themselves. The same concept applies for any civilian. If it was known that more of the public carried guns, delinquents would think twice before they would approach someone. Most small time criminals cannot easily gain access to guns under strong anti-gun laws, which is probably true. But most crooks that perform violent crimes do not use guns, but knives or any other easily accessible weapon to get what they want. Criminals look for easy targets to attack like women, older people, and those not carrying guns. In order to create effective gun laws, the law makers must understand the relationship between guns and violence. New gun laws must be thought out thoroughly because a lot of laws that are made do not necessarily have the intended effect of the law.The anti-gun supporter of today believes that if guns were outlawed, then the rate of violent crimes would drop
Guns are one of the most controversial and debated-upon topics in America today. In the Constitution, Americans are given “the right to bear arms,” and many Americans are proud of and believe strongly in that right. Though, that right has been constantly misused. Homicides by gun are at a higher rate in the United States than any other country in the world, mass shootings are at an all time high (many of which have occurred in the past two years alone), and terrorism has been at an all-time high. So, naturally, it is a topic that needs to be discussed. In the articles Change Your Gun Laws, America (1), author Fareed Zakaria provides the readers with some harrowing statistics on guns and insight over how the U.S. laws on guns need to be managed.
People who appreciate activities like shooting competitions and hunting, use firearms responsibly. This use contrasts with other uses, which often result in consequences that can be both intended and unintended. With past and present mass shootings, and acts of bloodshed perpetrated with the usage of weapons; has triggered a focus on gun control that once again has been brought into the spotlight. The purpose of the ongoing gun argument addresses the crimes that are committed with guns. This issue of gun control separated people into two groups: those who believe that carrying guns might prevent some crimes and fatalities, and those who don’t. There are individuals who believe absolutely the reverse: that more crime and deaths
In the United States of America the right to bear arms gave birth to a phenomenon called the “gun culture,” the term coined in 1970 by a historian Richard Hofstadter, which describes America’s heritage and affection for weapons(1). Not only did gun culture become an inseparable part of American democracy, but also it is considered to be synonymous with independence and freedom, the most important values for American society. Even though the crime rate and murder rate in the U.S. is higher than in any other developed country, U.S. citizens oppose every attempt made to pass gun control legislation(2). However, it may sound like a paradox, but the crime level in the most liberal states, when it comes to gun ownership, is the lowest in the
Contraceptives are widely used throughout the United States in today’s age and age, but in the early 1950s, Connecticut and Massachusetts were the only states in the union that still had anticontraception policies such as the 1879 Connecticut statute prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives (Johnson 6). Estelle Griswold accepted a job as executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and began a fight to give access for women to use contraceptives legally. It was very predictable the verdicts for the lower court cases during Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) as many judges took the side of the 1879 precedent. However, by the time it reached the Supreme Court, the main issue focused was the right to privacy which
The Bill of Rights is easily one of the most important sections within constitution, and this is because of the way that it protects the citizens of the United States from the government. One of the items therein the Bill of Rights is the 4th Amendment which states that, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Broken down, this one sentence gives the people the right to be secure and not be violated by the government when it comes to their property, papers and effects. This keeps them from being searched or having items seized without a warrant. This warrant that can be created has to be specific about the places that are going to be searched and the items that will be seized. This article will be divided into multiple sections that overall encompass the meaning of, how it came to be, and why it is important. The importance of this specific amendment is absolutely endless, and without it, our country would not be in the place that it is today.
While all the Court Justices in Griswold v. Connecticut agreed that the legislation prohibiting the use of contraception was purely irrational, Justices Douglas and Black differed with the Court’s judgment about the case decision. Justice Douglas expressed the majority’s opinion in which he stated that the Connecticut law that banned the use or supply of contraception was unconstitutional because it failed to obey the “right to privacy” derived from certain privacy rights listed on the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, Justice Black disagreed with Justice Douglas by stating that the rights enumerated by Douglas were a mere implication of privacy and that the “right to privacy” didn’t reflect anything stated directly on the Constitution.
cited for demanding unlimited access to firearms, but according to the data provided in this paper, there is only a small chance that privately owned guns will be used in a situation against a robber, intruder, or a criminal. Firearms that are legally purchased by civilians will most likely be used by criminals and will leave innocent citizens injured. Also, supporters of gun rights believe that ‘the right to keep and bear arms” is a guaranteed right to all citizens of the United States and cann
Every year people from all over the world come to the United States for a myriad of reasons. Some to seek employment, some education, and others to seek safe haven from violence and oppression from foreign governments. Regardless of the reason, the beauty of the United States is that the protections afforded by the constitution apply to anyone within its territory. However, since the terrorist attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, the protections of the constitution have since become a blurred line. Legislation such as the Patriot Act, and methods in which law enforcement conduct operations to combat terrorism have pushed the limits of the constitution. Finding the balance of working within the confines of the constitution is a constant challenge. The growing challenge elicits the potential for legal, policy and ethical issues, which ultimately undermine the very purpose of what the constitution is intended to protect.
All day all night this document printed on hemp and written with a quill, the defender of American Ideology and rights, the constitution. But to get the jest of the constitution you have to have an understanding of the Bill of Rights the first ten right written into the framework of every American person. The United States Bill of Rights.
It is nearly impossible to comprehend the overwhelming changes the United States has endured over the past 200 years, spanning from 1787 when the Constitution was created, all the way up until today. In the present, new issues arise that would have been unpredictable to the three dozen or so men who attended the Constitutional Convention over two centuries ago. Now in 2014, America is confronted with a myriad of complex issues that the Founding Fathers would never have been able to perceive or address appropriately. Issues of racial and gender inequality, minority rights, due process, the equal protection clause, and countless other problems that plague America today would have been unpredictable when Constitution was written. The
The “Move to Amend” organization has put forth a proposed twenty-eighth amendment, that if ratified to the U.S. Constitution would take the constitutional rights away from all artificial entities such as corporations, and limit all campaign expenditures including the candidate 's own contributions and expenditures. The Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that according to the fourteenth amendment corporations are individuals that have constitutional rights. If corporations have the same rights as individuals, then under the first amendment they have the right to spend their money on political campaigns as they choose. I am against both parts of this proposed twenty-eighth amendment, the Supreme Court has already set precedence and I believe that the addition of this amendment would directly contradict the first amendment since political speech is at the core of the first amendment. If you set limits on campaign expenditures, you are limiting someone’s ability to effectively campaign and get their message out. If a corporation chooses to spend large sums of money on political advertising then that is their choice, most people don’t want to be told how they can spend their money and neither do corporations.
The Bill of Rights was passed because concepts such as freedom of religion, speech, equal treatment, and due process of law were deemed so important that, barring a Constitutional Amendment, not even a majority should be allowed to change them. Rule of law is a principle under which all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are: publicly promulgated, equally enforced, independently adjudicated, and consistent with international human rights principles. The United States, as a democratic republic, derives ultimate authority and power from the citizens and runs the government through elected officials. Our elected officials follow the same rule of law as the people they govern, and it is the electorate’s hope that the laws they enforce are inevitably followed. However, this is not always the case, and during the thirty-seventh presidency of the United States, the people’s trust of our executive office was shaken by a corrupt Nixon administration and its scandalous ways.
John F. Kennedy once said, “ Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Indeed throughout the course of U.S. history, people’s liberty has been emphasized as one of the most important rights of American people. Liberty is understood as a basic right of freedom to which everyone can engage in certain actions without control or interference by a government or other power. Based on that principle, selective incorporation is a process of constitutional law in which some provisions of the Bill of Rights are nationalized to the states through the nationalization of Fourteenth
In 1791 were added 10 amendments to the US Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights. The First amendment is one of the most fundamental and important rights that individuals have. This amendment describes the rights of the citizens of the United States, also the amendment guarantee citizens crucial freedoms, which are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and freedom of petition. The First Amendment is very powerful and has the ability to protect us but sometime even harm us (for example some of the lawsuits against First Amendment).
Many people are not aware of their own rights, let along the fact that there are rights for victims. Before this class, I knew of a couple rights for victims, but not very many. I was uneducated in this area. For a long period of history, victims’ rights were not recognized, because they were not seen as necessary. Now there are thirty-two states that have added an amendment to their state constitutions including the rights of victims. However, these laws are not perfect. They do not apply to all victims of all crimes, and they do not always specify at what point after the crime these laws go into affect. In fact, only about half of the country affords rights to all victims, regardless of the crime. This number is too absolutely too low, but because people in general are unaware of this, there is no movement for change.