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Gun Politics, the political aspects of gun control and firearms rights, has long been among the most controversial and intractable issues in American politics. At the heart of this debate is the relationship between the rights of the citizen and the Government's duty to provide for the common defense versus the Government's authority to regulate firearms and duty to maintain order.
Gun politics in the United States, viewed in its simplest form, addresses three questions. "First, does the Constitution permit federal, state, or local regulation of individual firearms ownership? Second, do such laws effectively and materially reduce violent crime? And third, what further regulations are needed?"
Key to this issue is the Second Amendment, which is interpreted by supporters of gun rights as enshrining an individual right, and by advocates of gun control as referring to a right of the people to arm themselves only when bonded together for communal defense. A consensus of legal opinion does support the federal regulation of firearms.
The history of enactment of gun regulation legislation is characterized by repetitive cycles of popular outrage, action and reaction usually in response to sensational shootings. The first modern gun regulation, the 1911 Sullivan Act in New York State emerged in reaction to an attempt to murder New York City Mayor William Jay Gaynor. The shooting deaths of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led to public outrage and the political action with enactment of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968. Supporters of individual gun rights have resisted nearly all these regulation efforts, often spearheaded by the National Rifle Association. This outrage-action-reaction cyclical pattern reflects an essential core value conflict at the center of the gun politics issue.
Now, as a new generation of gun wielding gangs, thugs, hitmen and even the insane, the United States, once again has to ask questions of its aging Constitution.
Discuss.
Gun politics in the United States, viewed in its simplest form, addresses three questions. "First, does the Constitution permit federal, state, or local regulation of individual firearms ownership? Second, do such laws effectively and materially reduce violent crime? And third, what further regulations are needed?"
Key to this issue is the Second Amendment, which is interpreted by supporters of gun rights as enshrining an individual right, and by advocates of gun control as referring to a right of the people to arm themselves only when bonded together for communal defense. A consensus of legal opinion does support the federal regulation of firearms.
The history of enactment of gun regulation legislation is characterized by repetitive cycles of popular outrage, action and reaction usually in response to sensational shootings. The first modern gun regulation, the 1911 Sullivan Act in New York State emerged in reaction to an attempt to murder New York City Mayor William Jay Gaynor. The shooting deaths of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led to public outrage and the political action with enactment of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968. Supporters of individual gun rights have resisted nearly all these regulation efforts, often spearheaded by the National Rifle Association. This outrage-action-reaction cyclical pattern reflects an essential core value conflict at the center of the gun politics issue.
Now, as a new generation of gun wielding gangs, thugs, hitmen and even the insane, the United States, once again has to ask questions of its aging Constitution.
Discuss.
