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.
Amendment II, Bill of Rights
Constitution of the U.S.
The Second Amendment has been a major issue in American politics since 1876. In
question is the intent of this Amendment. Was it meant to insure that people in general
have arms for personal service, or was it intended to insure arms for military service?
The nation's powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, holds that it means the
right to keep and bear arms -any arms. This privileged right is given to those 60-65
million people who choose to own guns. The NRA also believes that human character
defects cannot be changed by a simple regulation of guns. They argue that problems with
firearm ownership cannot be, in any way, associated with criminal violence. The lobbyist
give credibility to this statement by adding that criminal violence continues to increase
in cities like New York and Washington DC, even though gun control statutes were put into
affect. They point out that gun laws would not have stopped most addicted killers.
According to the NRA, anti-crime measures are the way to conquer urban violence, not
anti-gun measures. The hope of most members in the association is to educate people
about guns. The association is willing to reveal proper usage of guns to non-gun owners.
They feel that this training could help reduce some of the tragedies involving guns.
The issue of gun control has become a dividing line in America. To gun control
activists, the issue is about crime and the regulation of the weapons used to commit
these crimes. In their opinion, law abiding citizens should have no need for guns. In
this respect, the big controversy seems shallow . However, to the NRA population, a much
deeper issue is in question, the issue is freedom. The members believe that the Second
Amendment is crucial to the maintenance's of the democratic process. From their point of
view, people who advocate gun control are ready to disregard a constitutional right.
They believe that, if the Second Amendment is abridged, the First Amendment will be the
next to go.
The Executive Branch of the Federal Government is in a high-profile position on the
issue of gun control. During this current Presidential election season, much rhetoric is
being exchanged on the issue. It would almost appear that one must play to either camp
in order to receive the desired endorsement of the strong political lobby groups. In the
case of Bob Dole, the Republican Presidential candidate, his platform on gun control at
times are contradictory, but his pattern of voting on gun-related issues in the senate
seem to follow the characteristic Republican-NRA view on gun control.
President Clinton takes a very different stand on gun control. His current re-election
platform calls for further restrictions on guns and on people who buy guns. This
characteristic "Democrat" attitude on gun control closely follows the view of Handgun
Control, Inc., a political lobby group dedicated to governmental control and regulation
of guns in the United States. Gun control and drug control are usually associated with
opposite ends of the political spectrum. Presidents Reagan and Bush were eager to pursue
the war on drugs but generally wary of gun control. However, President Clinton has made
gun control a major goal, while his drug strategy is almost invisible.
During President Clinton's administration, the Brady Bill on gun control was passed. This
bill was gridlocked in the House for seven years. The Brady Bill (named for James Brady,
press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, who was seriously injured when he was shot
during a 1981 assassination attempt against Reagan) was signed by President Clinton, on
November 30, 1993, and took effect in March 1994. This measure imposes a 5-day waiting
period for the purchase of handguns and provides for the creation of a national computer
network to check the backgrounds of gun buyers. The Clinton Administration was also able
to pass an assault-style firearms bill that banned the sale and distribution of certain
types of automatic weapons. The ban, part of a 1994 crime bill, took effect just months
before Republicans gained control of Congress.
During the past year, President Clinton's Administration pushed to get a terrorism bill
passed and signed into law. During the whole fight, the President and his allies
insinuated more than once that opponents of the bill were weak on crime. Gun laws tend
to be passed in an atmosphere of hysteria that discourages critical reflection. The Gun
Control Act of 1968 was approved soon after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr.
and Robert F. Kennedy. In fact, on the very day that Kennedy died, President Johnson
issued an emotional appeal to Congress demanding passage of a federal gun-control law.
Two dramatic incidents had helped create a sense of crisis, which Johnson used to his
advantage.
President Clinton tried to do something similar after last December's shootings on the
Long Island Railroad. Indeed, supporters of gun control are usually quick to seize upon
sensational acts of violence to justify more regulation. The attempted assassination of
President Reagan in 1981 ultimately gave us the Brady law, and the Stockton massacre
generated assault weapon legislation throughout the country.
According to The Washington Post, the President is now quietly working to repeal certain
parts of the terror bill which are clearly unconstitutional. The immigration reform bill
(S. 1664), which is now in a conference committee, will be the chosen vehicle for undoing
some of the unconstitutional points in the terror bill. The Clinton administration,
however, has proven to take a hard stand for tougher gun restriction laws, and if
reelected will push harder for more gun control laws.
The President of the United States is responsible for enforcing the legislation passed
by Congress and to enforce the rulings of the Supreme Court. The President is the
gatekeeper in the area of National Agendas. The outcome of the Presidential Election
this November 5th will determine Administrative agenda and policy on crime, guns, and
gun-control into the twenty-first century.
The Legislative branch of the government controls the enactment of laws and the
legislative process. While the president may be in charge of national agendas, it is
ultimately up to congress to pass bills into law. When Clinton first came into office,
Congress was dominated by the Democrat Party. As mentioned earlier, Clinton was able to
get the Brady Bill signed into law, as well as get the ban on assault weapons passed
through Congress before the majority of the House shifted to favor the Republicans.
Laws passed in the States of Florida and Texas have gone in the opposite direction. The
Right to Carry Laws, were designed to reduce violent crime by making personal weapons an
equalizer between violent criminals and potential victims. The Fort Worth Star Telegram
recently reported that the fears raised about those laws had been proven unfounded, that
the feared "Bloodbath" had not come, and never would. And according to the FBI's Uniform
Crime Reports, in those states that had passed Right To Carry laws, Violent Crime had
been reduced.
After the Congressional shift took place, the president found it tougher to have his
political agenda on gun control carried out. Instead, the Republican congress attempted
to reverse some of the laws passed by the previous session of Congress. In March of this
year, House Republican leaders, fulfilling a longtime promise to the National Rifle
Association, voted to repeal the ban on assault-style firearms.
Representative Charles Schumer, chief author of the 1994 legislation (that banned the
weapons), described the expedited scheduling of the vote, announced by House Majority
Leader Dick Armey, as "a sneak attack". The measure had not even been scheduled for
action by the Rules Committee, which must act before a bill goes to the floor. The ban,
part of the 1994 crime bill, took effect just months before Republicans gained control of
Congress despite active lobbying against it by the NRA. Overturning it has been the
association's top legislative priority.
The House of Representatives voted to repeal the ban on 19 types of semiautomatic
weapons, but President Clinton said he would veto the legislation if it gets to his desk.
The vote came on a bill to remove the ban on weapons like the AK-47 and the Uzi from the
1994 crime bill that passed when Democrats controlled Congress. The final vote was
239-173. "It is an outrage for the Congress to vote to repeal the assault weapon ban.
It's an IOU to the National Rifle Association," Vice President Al Gore said at a news
briefing. Supporters of the bill said the ban was ineffective and violated the
constitutional right of Americans to own guns. Clinton had denounced the bill earlier,
saying, "I believe it would be deeply wrong for Congress to repeal this assault weapon
ban. It doesn't need to be voted on in the House or the Senate and if it is passed, I
will veto it."
Several House Republican freshmen have been pressuring leaders for the repeal, which they
promised during their 1994 campaigns that created the House's first Republican majority
in 40 years. "Promises made. Promises kept," Armey said. The majority leader's
spokeswoman, Michele Davis, added later: "House Republican leaders are fulfilling a
promise made in January of 1995 to Republican and Democratic members who asked for and
were told they would get a vote on repeal sometime in this Congress." Representative
John Conyers of Michigan, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, was furious. "The NRA
must consider the Republican Congress the gift that keeps on giving," Conyers said. "Last
week, the Republicans destroyed the anti-terrorism bill because the NRA didn't like it,
and now they want Uzis and AK-47s back in mass production." Both House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who clinched the GOP nomination for
president Tuesday, promised last year to put repeal to a vote. The terror bombing of
Oklahoma City's federal building and the stalemate with the Clinton administration over
the federal budget helped keep the measure off both chambers' schedules. On March 22,
1996 the bipartisan House voted to repeal the Clinton gun ban and get tough with armed
criminals was achieved despite efforts by Administration allies who resorted to personal
attacks.
"What we are going to have is a partnership of strengthening laws against the criminal
misuse of firearms, which everyone agrees is the real problem issue, and eliminating
harassment of law-abiding gun owners who are not the problem."
--House Speaker
Newt Gingrich
183 Republicans and 56 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives backed up those
words when they voted to repeal the 1994 Clinton gun and magazine ban.
Last year, Bernie Ward, a prominent Radio Talk Show host on KGO radio out of San
Francisco said "The Supreme Court has yet to strike down any law affecting gun control"
and he is right. The Supreme Court has not heard a case involving gun control since
1934. In that case... a man was to defend his right to possess a sawed off shotgun. The
ruling was such that, since he could not prove that the shotgun was standard military
equipment, he had no right to possess it. Therefore, had it been military equipment, he
had the right to own the weapon. Sawed off shotguns are banned in the United States as a
result.
The same thinking went into the "Ban" of fully automatic fire arms, such as the Tompson
Sub Machine Gun, which was popular with organized crime during the '20s and '30s.
Lawmakers did not "ban" the weapon, so much as control it by making it a requirement to
register and obtain a license to own one. As a result, sales of the Tommy Gun dropped to
nothing until World War II when the weapon was used extensively by US forces, and those
of other nations. Had the weapon been "banned," the Supreme Court would undoubtedly have
overturned the law. The myth that the sub machine gun was banned, however, has
persisted.
In April, 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that gun possession at school was not a federal
offense, (U.S. v Lopez, No. 93-1260, April 26, 1995). In this landmark decision, the
Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Congress overstepped its constitutional authority to
intervene in local affairs when it enacted the 1990 Gun Free School Zone, a federal law
banning possession of a gun within a 1000 feet of a school. What's at issue here is how
much authority Congress can exercise over the states. Since 1930, Congress has relied
heavily on a clause in the Constitution giving Congress power to "regulate
commerce...among the several states," to enact a slew of federal laws formerly left-up to
the states. Congress has only had to show that the activity somehow involved interstate
commerce to justify making a federal law against it.
In the Lopez ruling, Chief Justice William Rehnquist called the 1990 Gun-Free School
Zone Act "a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any
sort of economic enterprise." He also stressed that federal authority to regulate
interstate commerce cannot be used to "obliterate the distinction between what is
national and what is local and create a completely centralized government."
The outcome of the Lopez ruling was that Congress received a strong message from the
Supreme Court to curb it's practice of broadly interpreting the commerce clause to enact
legislation that can be handled by the states. It is too early to know how or if this
decision will impact other gun laws, but it is a move that may help to reduce the scope
of the federal government.
The gun controllers like to argue that the courts have found no constitutional right of
individuals to bear arms. That merely means that the courts have seldom had occasion to
rule on gun control laws. As The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court notes, one reason
for the absence of court rulings on the Second Amendment is that, for much of American
history, there were few regulations concerning firearms ownership.
In June of this year, The United States Supreme Court agreed to review the Brady Law.
Soon after the law took effect, lawsuits were filed in federal district courts in seven
states. The plaintiffs in those cases were local sheriffs, whom the law requires to
conduct background checks of handgun purchasers. Each of the suits alleges that the
Brady Law violates the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects
state and local governments from certain types of federal mandates.
Within the last year, three circuits of the U.S. Court Of Appeals have issued rulings.
In two cases, the Ninth Circuit and Second Circuit, the courts ruled that the background
check provision of the law did not violate the 10th Amendment. The Fifth Circuit
rendered a different decision -- striking down the background check as a violation of the
10th Amendment. No court has ever struck down the waiting period. "We are confident
that the Supreme Court, upon hearing the case, will agree with the decisions made in the
Ninth and Second Circuits," said Sarah Brady, chairperson of Handgun Control, Inc. "We
are not surprised that the Supreme Court agreed to examine the case given the split in
the circuits.
Since going into effect on Feb. 28, 1994, the law has stopped tens of thousands of
prohibited individuals from making over-the-counter handgun purchases. Furthermore,
polls have consistently shown more than 90 percent of the American public supporting the
law.
As stated earlier, there is little jurisprudence in the area of gun control by the
Supreme Court. Until the Lopez case, which is really a commerce clause case, not a gun
control case, the Supreme Court had not heard a gun control issue since the Miller case
in 1939. This, however, seems to be changing with the announcement that the Supreme
Court will review the Brady Bill Case. The issue of gun control is heating up... soon it
will be up to the Supreme Court to decide on the Constitutionality of gun control.
Special interest groups have been part of the American political process since its
beginning and have been viewed ambivalently for more than 200 years. As early as 1787,
James Madison warned about the "mischiefs of `factions.'" Beginning in the late 1970s,
pressure groups took on new importance in U.S. politics. In the area of gun-control,
political special interest groups are polarized. There is no middle of the road groups,
they are either devoutly for or against gun control. On either side of the gun control
issue are two very prominent, high profile groups, the NRA and Handgun Control, Inc.
The NRA (National Rifle Association) strongly opposes any type of gun regulation. The
NRA publishes "fact sheets" and "congressional ratings sheets" to inform their members
and non-members on their views and how their Congressional representative rates in the
area of gun-control laws. In 1992 the organization had about 2,500,000 members. With
headquarters and a strong lobby in Washington, D. C., the NRA mobilizes its members
through some 14,000 affiliates. Its activities are both educational and recreational
(educating police firearms instructors, sponsoring shooting competitions, promoting
safety) and political (lobbying against gun-control legislation). Although polls show
that the U. S. public favors gun-control laws, the NRA has so far successfully, if less
and less decisively, opposed broad-based legislation.
The NRA has a slogan: "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Groups for stricter
gun control, such as Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI), argue that guns do kill people. They
think that it is the gun that makes people feel they are in the right and have the power
to take someone's life and control a situation.
Handgun Control, Inc. is the nation's largest citizens' gun control lobbying
organization. HCI, based in Washington, D.C., works to enact stronger federal, state,
and local gun control laws, but does not seek to ban handguns. Founded in 1974, HCI has
more than 400,000 members nationwide. The Brady Law, which was passed in February 1994,
was strongly lobbied for by interest groups such as HCI. These types of interest groups
are actively working to counteract the NRA's force in Washington.
The NRA, HCI, and other interest groups endorse political candidates to give members a
means of knowing where that candidate stands on an issue. This ''single-issue politics,"
creates a political race where many individuals and groups support or reject candidates
based solely on their views on particular questions. Interest groups are increasingly
supplying the public with more and more guidelines on how its members should vote for
candidates.
The preamble of the United States Constitution clearly states its objective: to establish
justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
The bill of rights is the set of amendments to the constitution intended to secure these
objectives for the individual citizens of the United States. The second amendment 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. This amendment was written in
the wake of the revolutionary war, when the ability to raise arms against the imperial
force made the new republic possible. Securing the ownership of arms, as a right, was
central to creating a government that would not infringe on the liberty of its citizens.
The use of arms, however, is the last option reserved when all other attempts at the
preservation of liberty have failed.
Today we live in a much different world than that of our founders. The rise of the
United States into world dominance, the shift of population into the cities, and the
increase of drug use and violence have produced great change in our society. Americans
once feared the loss of the free state would come from foreign invasion or political
corruption, but now the greatest threat is the violence we see on the evening news. The
increase in violence and murder has sparked the greatest debate over gun ownership in our
nation's history. The second amendment has been reinterpreted by those who feel the mere
presents of guns have led to increased violence. I believe that the threat violence poses
to personal liberty is the best reason to protect gun rights.
We must assume that the founders understood the responsibilities that are inherent with
gun ownership. The exclusion of criminals and the insane had to be seen in the interest
of the republic. These specific decisions are constitutionally the responsibility of
individual states. The regulations placed on the ownership of guns fall into two
categories. The first set of regulations are penalties and deterrents for those who
should not have guns. Second is the regulations that help to protect law abiding gun
owners.
Guns must be regulated to prevent criminals and others who might use weapons against the
good of the state from attaining weapons legally or illegally. President George Bush
indicated the true problem in a 1992 speech, when he said, "I am firmly committed to
keeping guns out of criminals hands and keeping criminals off the street. Ultimately,
the only gun control that will really work is crime control."
Several reforms are needed in order to decrease the number of criminals in possession of
guns. Mandatory sentences should be established for criminals who perpetrate crimes
using guns and for felons caught with guns. This regulation will serve as a deterrent
for using guns, and will help keep the armed criminal behind bars. A minimum sentence
for the theft of firearms may help to slow down the flow of guns into the black market.
A waiting period or a pre-check system on all gun purchases will help keep ineligible
buyers from attaining guns legally. The system must be efficient and accurate before the
cost to taxpayers can be justified. Stricter rules for the licensing of gun dealers will
help to limit the number of people with access to new weapons. Stricter business
regulations and an effort to increase compliance will help to weed out the bad dealers.
The most stringent of regulations can not solve the problem of violence in America. The
black market is strong and will continue to serve the needs of the criminal. The United
States has no hope of truly improving its social dilemma without a return to values.
Until the situation improves, the lawful citizen must be allowed to protect him/herself
in the spirit of the second amendment. Compliance with simple regulations that will help
protect the owner and others demonstrates responsibility in gun ownership. I feel that
gun ownership should be handled in the same fashion as car ownership. The first step
should be thorough training. Mandatory safety classes will teach how and when the use of
a gun is appropriate. When the training is completed, a gun can be registered and a
license for use issued. Despite all the training in the world, accidents still occur. A
gun owner liability policy should be required for anyone who wishes to own or use a gun.
This policy would probably become part of a homeowners policy, and could be used as a
pre-checking system for the purchase of handguns. This would place the responsibility of
background checks on the insurance companies rather than the taxpayer. It would also
allow those with a policy to pick out and take home a gun the same day of purchase,
eliminating the need for a waiting period. The insurance industry is the foremost expert
in the prevention of accidents. The regulations they would place on gun owners would be
more effective than any the government bureaucracy could develop for the prevention of
accidents.
In any situation, guns should be seen as the last option. In some cases, however, the
use of deadly force is your only protection. In 1992, firearms were used for
self-defense over 82 thousand times. In 63% of these incidents, the victim only had to
show the gun to stop the attack. With proper training, a gun is an effective deterrent
and a lethal defense.
Perhaps the people who know the best about gun control are police officers. In a 1988
survey of police officers, most unanimously agreed on mandatory prison sentences,
stricter laws on handgun sales, and increased requirements for handgun dealers. In this
same survey, they also agreed that citizens should be allowed guns in their homes for
self protection. This shows that police officers know they can not protect everyone at
once; at times it falls on the individual to make up their own mind regarding self
defense.
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Cassidy, Warren, "The Case For Firearms," Time 19 January 1990: p. 23.
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Evans, James T., Where Liberals Go To Die (Houston, Texas: Commonwealth Publishing,
1994) p. 201.
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U.S. Department of Justice, April 1994
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