Gun laws Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Gun laws - Essay Example Specifically, the events of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting alongside the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre have galvanized public opinion on both sides of the issue. As such, this brief analysis will seek to consider the debate from the perspective of the pro-gun control movement. In such a way, it will be the express goal of this author to relate to the reader some of the most powerful arguments in favor of further gun control and the rationale behind these. As such, it is the author’s hope that the reader will gain a more nuanced and complete understanding of the main arguments for further gun control by an analysis of the following 4 arguments: the Second Amendment does not, nor did it ever, provide for individual gun rights, the high rate of gun related violence and death, as well as the societal needs for reasonable gun control laws, and whether or not further testing should be put in place for those individuals that have a propensity to instability. Finally, a n examination of an even more vehement argument with regards to gun control will be entertained and discussed. The first, and perhaps most contentious of the issues that this analysis will seek to discuss, is the issue of whether or not the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution sought to convey individual gun rights to the citizen. ... In such a way, the Second Amendment can and should be interpreted as little more than admission from the Federal government that it promises not to infringe upon the rights of the militias (National Guard and Army Reserves) to maintain a stock of weaponry for the purpose of defense and securing the borders of the new nation. This particular argument hinges upon interpretation of the Constitution; one of the most contested documents within the political spectrum (Saenz 1). However, from a rhetorically honest standpoint, the text of the bill specifies specifically what it denotes; i.e. the right of the states and by extension the militias under their control to retain weapons. In short, such argument is valid; however, it cannot be used to effectively engage those members of the pro-gun persuasion due to the fact that they have almost invariably chosen to interpret the document by a wholly different standard (Trotter 26). The second argument which will be utilized within this brief ana lysis is the fact the extraordinarily high rate of gun crime and the increasingly gruesome nature that it has taken within the past several years demands stricter gun laws. There have always been cases of extreme violence, even massacres, within American society; however, the fact of the matter is that almost all of these hideous crimes have a single factor in common; the widespread and pervasive use of semi-automatic weapons, readily obtained by individuals who can easily be described as unstable, as well as the implementation and usage of high capacity magazines (Shear 1). Whether or not guns should be allowed is not the central issue that is up for debate; rather, the issue at hand is the ease and availability that is unilaterally shared by almost all of the purveyors