The Role Of Gun Ownership In America

Laws regulating the use of guns in America have been a hot topic for years. Media coverage of mass shootings, acts of terrorism in and outside of the United States, and stories of families being murdered in the night has resulted in a desensitized, or perhaps, overly sensitized nation. People are scared and have centered their idea of safety on one of two main approaches: creating stricter gun laws so less crime occurs, or taking away gun restrictions so everyone can protect themselves against crime. Policies stemming from these vantage points begin by the agenda set by pertinent support and opposition groups, reflecting these approaches.

American citizens have had the right to own guns and have had easy access to them since the Constitution was written. The Second Amendment grants militias the right to own guns to protect the citizens, but it can be interpreted in multiple ways. Like the Second Amendment, gun control and gun laws are just as old and have shaped the country in different ways. Recently, the easy accessibility to guns and lack of strict gun laws have increased the homicide, suicide, burglary, and theft rates, but there could be other variables that affect these data as well. Gun laws, and the lack there of, have affected American society in countless ways by improving and worsening Americans’ way of life.

Every so often the media and news feeds flood with reports of a mass shooting. Families mourn. In the days that follow, calls to action can be heard, and there is a demand for change. Sometimes minor legislation passes, but in the United States extreme change is rarely seen. Other developed nations provide an opposite comparison. Following the Port Arthur shooting in Australia and the shooting in Great Britain, both countries organized for significant gun reform.

On March 24, 1998, firing from the woods overlooking their school, 13-year-old Andrew Golden and 11-year-old Mitchell Johnson shot and killed four middle school students and a teacher and injured ten other students in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The two boys had a semiautomatic M-1 carbine with a large ammunition magazine, two other rifles, seven handguns and more than 500 rounds of ammunition which they took from the home of one of the boy?s grandfather, who had a large arsenal of weapons left unsecured. Officers arrested the two boys as they ran through the wooded area near the school, and they were convicted on five counts of capital murder and ten counts of first-degree battery in September 1998.

As time has progressed, the issue of gun ownership has become more and more of a debate. With the development of new technology that can lead to devastating destruction, it is extremely difficult to overlook the harm that this weaponry could ensue on the safety of our nation. As stated in the second amendment of the constitution of the United States, “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” ("The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription") The framers, however, could never have known the potential for destruction that our present weaponry can cause. So, the question to this day has been, to what degree should the infringement of our right to bear arms be prevented? There are many different possible answers to this question, however, to me, only one answer seems to stand above the rest. The government of the United States, in order to uphold the rights for the general good of the majority of United States citizens, should infringe on this right to the degree necessary in order to provide the utmost amount of safety for their people while continuing to recognize the original intentions of the framers.

According to a World Health Organization study done in 2010, the Unites States of America has the fourth highest firearm homicide rate in the world after Afghanistan, Iraq and the Congo. More recently, a study done in 2013 by the Center for Disease Control found out that there were a total of 33,169 deaths with the use of firearms and more than half were a result of suicide. These statistics have sparked an extensive amount of modern debates on whether we as an American democracy need to amend the second amendment and regulate the purchase of as well as the right to individually bear arms. Two people who analyze this debate very differently but effectively are Zack Beauchamp who wrote “Rethinking the Right to Bear Arm”, and Nelson Lund who

The effectiveness within current gun policies in the United States of America have undeniably evoked debate, as the number of gun-inflicted fatalities continues to increase each year. An issue with such weight on a nation, has been regarded as being treated frivolously inside the United States, as many citizens query the degree of action that has been made to end this growing topic. The stance of enforcing stricter gun laws within the United States, such as limiting who may carry firearms by requiring background checks for all gun sales, has been argued by many. For many Americans, gun control can be regarded as either being the solution to reducing gun violence, or a complete violation to their Second Amendment. For an issue like gun control, that could possibly impact an entire nation, partiality becomes easily entangled in discussions that surround the topic. News sources inside the United States, such as The New York Times, as well as certain foreign news sources, such as Al Jazeera, employs data to support a particular position, rather than personal opinion. When analyzing certain sources from foreign countries, such as Pravda, and their account on the United States’ growing gun concern, there is an undeniable degree of extreme dogmatism surrounding the approach in solving gun-induced violence.

The Pew Research Center is accredited nonprofit Organization based in Washington DC. Its purpose is to be an American think-tank for information regarding social and public opinion. This specific article focuses on why guns are used in the united states. First categorising why people own guns, for example; hunting, protection, collection, and hobbies. Then analyzing the groups of gun ownership within the categories of gender and political identification. The research also provides information on those who do not own guns and their reasoning to abstain from ownership. This article will be very useful in writing my paper for it provide an exact percentage of Americans who own gun and their purpose and reasoning for ownership.

It is appropriate to own a gun but following the entire legal requirements that are put in place to control the ownership and usage. In a state where everyone owns a firearm, the stability of that nation is likely to collapse .However, if a country controls the legalization of gun ownership, then security will not be a problem. In most of the nations where a large number of people own guns illegally, their stability is always questionable. The economy is still at its lowest, and the citizens are always fighting against one another. All these negative impacts then result in the formation of organizations or otherwise some militia groups that will ever want to be against the government. (Cerrone, 1999)

Gun control is now one of the main political issues because of all the shootings in the past decade. There have been many studies taken on gun control that shows more gun control lessens gun

Eliot Spitzer, An American politician, once stated, “Yes, people pull the trigger, but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror” (Spitzer, 2012). Spitzer must have been aware of the magnitude of gun violence and the need for gun control in America. The National Rifle Association (NRA) members believe that it is their constitutional right [ 2nd Amendment] to own guns and many mention that firearms are not the root of crime in the United States. Pew Research Center, in a poll on guns, showed that approximately 40% of the United States has a firearm in their home (Desliver, 2013). The NRA also suggests that firearm ownership is not connected to criminal violence or the increase in violence.

As time has progressed, the issue of gun ownership has become more and more of a debate. With the development of new technology that can lead to devastating destruction, it is extremely difficult to overlook the harm that this weaponry could ensue on the safety of our nation. As stated in the second amendment of the constitution of the United States, “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The framers, however, could never have known the potential for destruction that our present weaponry can cause. So, the question to this day has been, to what degree should the infringement of our right to bear arms be prevented? There are many different possible answers to this question, however, to me, only one

According to Al Jazeera Media Network, the number of civilian owned guns around the world is estimated at 650 million, and 270 million of those guns belong to the people of the United States. That means that there are 90 guns per every 100 Americans, giving the U.S. the highest gun ownership rate in the world. The country that comes in second is Yemen, with a population of 23 million there are 55 firearms per every 100 Yemenis, which is still only half as many guns as America, even though Yemen is a war-torn country with political instability. When it comes to number of deaths by firearms however, the United States is fifth in the world, with Brazil taking the lead. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a country like Japan, which has one of the strictest gun laws and one of the lowest murder rates in the world. Switzerland for example ranks high in gun ownership, but low in violent crime. So when compared to the rest of the world, the United States stands alone with both high gun ownership and high gun violence despite being a well off, developed country. After the attack on the historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, President Obama delivered a speech in which he said, “We as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.” The debate on gun control has now developed into screaming matches between politicians

Despite the harms associated with handguns, the Second Amendment, which 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”, protects the private ownership of them. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled against gun bans or regulations as violating the 2nd amendment. In the landmark ruling Heller vs. District of Columbia in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that a thirty-two year ban on the private ownership of handguns in the District of Columbia was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment implies that the government cannot enact an outright ban on commonly held weapons or prevent citizens from having

According to Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, The United States has 88.8 guns per 100 people, or about 270,000,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. Twenty two percent of Americans own one or more guns. Thirty five percent of them are men and twelve percent of them are women. If America goes like this then, it will become the worst. For example, When a person walks by a gun owner then, if the gun owner thinks that person is going to do something to him then, he may shoot however, he is not hundred percent sure about someone else's purpose. In that case, if the gun owner saw that person had guns with him then, he could have shot him. Without seeing something specifically, a person should