Difference between revisions of "Gun control"

Revision as of 16:56, May 8, 2007

Gun control laws have been enacted at the federal, state, and local level with the intent of placing restrictions on the right of individual private citizens to own firearms.

A common use of firearms is to defend one's life, though accidental death of those who are attacking has occurred. Gun control laws are often seen to conflict with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which recognizes the right to bear arms.

The Second Amendment reads: "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."

Gun control is the regulation by governments of gun ownership and the right to carry, conceal, or use firearms. Such measures can range from a total prohibition on civilian ownership and possession of firearms and ammunition to specific restrictions on certain firearm features, "waiting periods" for gun purchases, licensing of gun owners, registration of firearms, etc. Increased "gun control" is generally promoted by pacifists and liberals as a remedy to crime. In fact, whether or not guns are officially controlled by the government, criminals will commit crimes, and a black market will exist to provide them with firearms. For instance, despite the prohibition of handgun ownership in the United Kingdom, an island nation without any neighboring "gun culture" nations, handgun crime has been steadily increasing there for many years. As of 2005/06, the total deaths by shooting in the UK had increased to 50.^[1]. Comparably, the United States suffered 11,350 gun deaths in 2005.^[2]However, it should be noted that the USA has a population approximately 5 times greater than the UK,^[3] and^[4] the number of murders by shooting is approximately 200 times higher

The "right to keep and bear arms" is a right guaranteed to the American citizen by the Bill of Rights through the virtue of a selective reading of said Bill. The phrase "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" precedes the statement, and most federal circuits [[cour]ts of appeals]] have held that this phrase requires that the "right to bear arms" relates to the collective rights of state militias, as opposed to the individual's rights to have any weapon desired. Just recently, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit went against nine other circuits in holding that the Second Amendment constitutes an individual right.^[5]

Overview

The end effect of gun control laws is the concentration of firearms ownership in the hands of the state. This is why gun control is promoted by various statist philosophies such as Communism, Socialism, and Fascism.

"Gun control" is the use of legislation to place restrictions on this right. This can include:

• Restricting which persons can own firearms.
• Restrictions on the number of firearms a person may own, or purchase during a given time period
• Requirements that privately owned firearms be registered with the government.
• Bans on certain types of firearms; for example, "handguns" or assault rifles
• Restrictions on where firearms may be carried, for example into restaurants or post offices
• Requiring a "background check" and/or a "waiting period" to purchase a firearm
• Restricting when and where firearms may be bought and sold, for example banning their sale through the mail
• Requiring licenses or some other form of permission from the government to buy and/or sell a firearm
• Requiring some form of permission from the government to carry a firearm in public, either concealed or openly
• Laws granting special gun rights for some people, for example retired law enforcement officers, which are denied the rest of the public, which was used in several southern states.
• Outright bans on carrying firearms in public
• Outright bans on private possession of firearms, though this has never occurred in the United States

In the United States the three primary federal gun control laws are:

• National Firearms Act (1934)
• Gun Control Act (1968)
• Brady Bill (1993)

These laws have further been amended by other laws such as the Firearms Owners Protection Act (1986) and the Omnibus Crime Bill (1994).

Objections to gun control

Studies by John Lott and others indicate that gun control causes higher crime rates^[6]. Washington, D.C. has one of the highest crime rates in America even though it completely bans private handguns ^[7].

After decades of increasing gun control laws, the current trend is in the direction of more gun rights. The 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill included a ban on certain new rifles labeled assault rifles solely because of features of their appearance, and on new high-capacity magazines. This law recently expired and was not renewed by Congress. Also, Washington D.C.'s gun ban was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals on March 9, 2007.^[8]

Constitutional Debate

The Second Amendment reads:

"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."

Most constitutional scholars agree that since the amendment refers to "the right of the People" instead of the right of the militia, it protects an individual right to own guns. The extent of that right has been debated.

Racism of gun control

In the United States of America, gun control has a strong racist origin and reasoning. Before the Civil War ended, State "Slave Codes" prohibited slaves from owning guns. After President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and after the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery was adopted and the Civil War ended in 1865, States persisted in prohibiting blacks, now freemen, from owning guns under laws renamed "Black Codes." They did so on the basis that blacks were not citizens, and thus did not have the same rights, including the right to keep and bear arms protected in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as whites. This view was specifically articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its infamous 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford to uphold slavery.

The United States Congress overrode most portions of the Black Codes by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The legislative histories of both the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as The Special Report of the Anti-Slavery Conference of 1867, are replete with denunciations of those particular statutes that denied blacks equal access to firearms. [Kates, "Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment," 82 Mich. L. Rev. 204, 256 (1983)] However, facially neutral disarming through economic means laws remain in effect.

After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, most States turned to "facially neutral" business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia's official university law review called for a "prohibitive tax...on the privilege" of selling handguns as a way of disarming "the son of Ham," whose "cowardly practice of 'toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime.... Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights." [Comment, Carrying Concealed Weapons, 15 Va L. Reg. 391, 391-92 (1909); George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal (GMU CR LJ), Vol. 2, No. 1, "Gun Control and Racism," Stefan Tahmassebi, 1991, p. 75] Thus, many Southern States imposed high taxes or banned inexpensive guns so as to price blacks and poor whites out of the gun market.

Today, "gun control" laws continue to be enacted so as to have a racist effect if not intent:

• Police-issued license and permit laws, unless drafted to require issuance to those not prohibited by law from owning guns, are routinely used to prevent lawful gun ownership among "unpopular" populations.
• Public housing residents, approximately 3 million Americans, are singled out for gun bans.
• "Gun sweeps" by police in "high crime neighborhoods" whereby vehicles and "pedestrians who meet a specific profile that might indicate they are carrying a weapon" are searched are becoming popular, and are being studied by the U.S. Department of Justice as "Operation Ceasefire."
• Some U.S. cities with high minority populations, such as Washington, D.C., are singled out for gun bans.
• "Project Exile" began in the U.S. city of Richmond, Virginia and mandated that people arrested for technical firearms violations (note: not for violent crimes committed with a firearm, but for technical violations of the law) be tried in federal court where they would be subject to lengthy mandatory minimum sentences rather than in state court under the more lenient Virginia laws. As with many other restrictions this was aimed primarily at the city's Black residents. It has since been copied in many other cities.

External Links

• The National Rifle Association
• Armed citizens defending themselves.

References

1. ↑ http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf
2. ↑ http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
3. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa
4. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk
5. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/washington/10gun.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258067,00.html
6. ↑ http://www.johnrlott.com/
7. ↑ http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm
8. ↑ http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20070309-102401-2730r.htm