Many people hear the words “gun control” and immediately get angry – for one side or the other. Some think that America needs more gun control laws – that we have to deny access to all guns, all the time. Some think that guns should be free reign – that anyone, at any time, should be able to purchase a gun. Most are somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. In America today, we have taken many measures to protect gun ownership, namely the second amendment, which many people seem to misunderstand greatly.
The second amendment reads that “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This amendment protects individual gun ownership. It protects the right to individual protection such as self-defense within the home or higher threats such as feelings of safety or government tyranny. However, the second amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns.
According to ProCon.com, gun control laws date back to before the second amendment was even ratified, with the criminalization of gun transfer to certain groups, regulation of the storage of gun power in homes, banning loaded guns in Boston houses, and more. So while gun ownership has been a tradition since the dawn of America, so has gun control.
On June 9, 2016, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that “the right of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the second Amendment.”
Women are especially vulnerable to gun deaths by domestic partners. According to americanprogress.org and ncdsv.org, five women a day are killed by guns in America, and a woman’s risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. Common-sense background checks and other restrictions should be enacted in order to prevent those who have a violent history, a criminal history, a history of certain mental illnesses, a history of domestic violence, or other risk factors from getting access to guns. More safety features should be added to guns in order to avoid accidental gun deaths or injuries, which mainly affect children.
Gun control can be a frightening term for many people who fear a loss of protection if gun control laws were enacted. This has led to an increase in other safety features against guns, such as bulletproof backpacks and notebooks for school children. Ever since I was little, I have been trained on what to do if an active shooter was to enter my school building. We have had full lockdowns when gunmen were on our campus, and we have heard about so much worse. I didn’t realize how abnormal this was until I started talking to people who were not from America, who did not live here. This is not common practice around the world. Guns have never made me feel safe.
This does not ring true for everyone. Many veterans feel safer with guns around as protection. Many people have guns in their homes for self-defense or use for hunting or marksmanship competitions. Gun ownership for these people is necessary for them to feel safe. This is why we must meet somewhere in the middle.
Most of us do not want guns gone completely, we understand the necessity of gun ownership for certain groups of people. We do realize, however, that something needs to be done about those who should never have had guns in their possession in the first place.
