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Jose Rivera
Professor William J. Greer
POL-1100
3 April 2016

The Second Amendments and Gun Laws

Gun laws and the Second Amendment have been an arguable issue since the
birth of American history. There are people who support the Second Amendment,
and there are others who suggest that guns are a safety hazard and should be
banned from the Unite States. But what does the right to bear arms really mean
and does it apply to our current day rights as an American? Like many topics, there
always pros and cons, and gun laws are one of the few that has data supporting
both sides of the argument. The Founding Father implemented that Amendment to
the Bill of Rights for a reason and since then, the government has modified it due to
past and current events. President Obama has also issue a plan to change the way
guns are purchased and sold. He will also plan to provide more funds to
organizations that will help people with mental health issues. There is also a
suggested product that will probably find a solution to the ongoing debate.
The Second Amendment states that 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. In other words, a well monitored militia (or a non-professional
fighter such as a civilian) can possess a gun for the purpose of security without
breaking the terms of the law. Tom Head, an author that writes about civil liberties

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and also holds a PhD in religion and society, questions if the second amendment
protects the right to bear arms. The second amendment was place is order to
protect the United States when it was first established and was named a free
country around the late 1700s. The purpose of this amendment was because the
United States did not have a military that was professionally trained in combat. In
which case, the country had to use civilians, called civilian militia, in order to defend
for themselves from the British or French armies. (Head, 2015)
However, things changed after John Adams presidency. He ordered the
military to be trained in professional combat in case of an attack. If in such case
there was an attack, the country would be better prepared to fight back efficiently.
Today, the United States Army is a mix of full-time and part-time professionally
trained soldiers, thus eliminating the need of a military draft. In addition, there has
not been a single battle on U.S. soil since the civil war in 1865. This change made
the civilian militia unusable and disappear after a military was created. This change
leads us to question if the second amendment really grants the civilians the right to
bear arms, since the amendment was originally written for a militia. (Head, 2015)
There are many people that support the second amendment and there are
indeed many benefits to it. One of the benefits of owning a firearm is that it
decreases the chances of a criminal attack. According to the CNS News, while the
gun ownership increase, crime decreased. The CNS News provides data from the
Center for Disease Control. It shows information of gun ownership in America
between the years 1994 to 2014. The graph indicates the number of people in the
United States whom own a gun in their household. As the numbers of people who
owned firearms increase, the number of crimes have decreased, nearly as the same
rate of 50 percent. Based on the data from the Congressional Research Service, the

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number of guns own by civilians in the United States in 1993 was 185 million in and
in 2013, that number increased to 357 million. (Perry, 2015)
When there are pros, there will also be cons. Because of the increase of gun
ownerships, here has also been gun related incidents caused by people who are not
responsible or mentally incompetent with firearms. Incidents include the Sandy
Hook shootings back in December 2012 in Newton, Connecticut, the Aurora Theater
Shooting in July 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, and last but not least, in our very own
state, the Trolley Square shooting in February 2007 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Those
are just a few examples. In addition, 53 percent of the suicides happened in 2005
were related to the use of guns (Connect). Incidents such as these have made
people question if the second amendment really is necessary and/or a beneficiary to
our country.
There has always been debates on whether or not gun laws should be stricter
or if guns should be illegal all together. In such case, the United States has taken a
stand to provide stricter gun law. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits the sale to
several categories of individuals such as persons under the age of eighteen, those
with criminal records, the mentally disabled, unlawful aliens, dishonorably
discharged military personnel. Later in 1993, the government amended a law which
mandated background checks for all unlicensed persons purchasing a firearm from
a federally licensed dealer.
President Obama announces a gun control plan on Jan 5, 2016 that will better
regulate the sale of firearms (Rosenfeld, 2016). In his speech, Obama rejects the
thought that the background checks will not stop the actions of massacre, and
implements his own idea. This plan is to increase and expand the background check

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for buyers, increase funding for people to get help if they suffer from a mental
incompetence, and involve more members to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to
increase the process of the background checks. Some people like Robert J. Spitzer,
distinguished service professor and chair of the political science department at
SUNY Cortland, agrees with this plan. He states that roughly 40 percent of all gun
sales and transfers in the U.S. occur without a background check, because buyers
are obtaining guns from non-licensed gun sellers or via the Internet or the black
market. Paraphrasing that Obama is doing the right thing by increasing the funds
of healthcare organizations and improve mental health diagnosis and reporting.
While others do not agree with President Obama like Hadley Heath Manning who is
the health policy director at the Independent Women's Forum. She states that
background checks will do us no good in preventing crimes. Stating that ..Yet all
licensed gun dealers are already required to perform background checks, no matter
their sales volumes, or whether they sell guns online, at a gun show, or in their
stores and implying that these gun regulations will make little to no difference.
Citizens of the United States should have the right to own a firearm, with
regulations of course. Other countries believe that it is almost too easy to buy a gun
in the United States and that it is no wonder that there is so much crime in the
land of the free. People like Adam Lanza and James Holmes possession of a
firearm and causing a massacre makes that statement not false. President Obamas
plan will work because it will restrict gun laws by decreasing the rate of these
massacres and promote more aid to people with mental health issues. Currently,
there are new technologies that combine the gun and biometrics made by
TedxMilehigh to make firearms safer. The gun is basically using the owners
fingerprint to make the gun usable. If the gun does not recognize the users

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fingerprint, it will automatically lock, thus making it difficult for others to use that
particular weapon.
Gun laws are one of the broader things to debate about which makes it very
difficult to find a solution. The second amendment was put in place for civilian
militia but by the time John Adams became the president, there were trained and
professional military so there was no need for a militia. The benefits of owning a
firearm within a large community is that it, in fact, lowers crime rates. However,
people still see a threat because of major crimes that has happened in public areas.
President Obama has proposed a solution that will help people with mental
condition seek help and to make gun law even stricter. Some people agree with the
new plan like Robert Spitzer, while others disagree like Hadley Manning. There have
been many suggestions and one of them is to combine the gun with biometrics and
using the owners fingerprint to unlock the gun. The future has a lot in store and we
shall see if the futuristic gun will be the answer to this ongoing debatable issue.
Citations
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. "U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons." PBS. PBS,
21 Dec. 2012. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Head, Tom. "Does the 2nd Amendment Protect the Individual Right to Bear Arms?"
About.com News & Issues. 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
"Less Guns, Less Crime- Debunking the Self-Defense Myth." Armed With Reason. 21
Aug. 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Manning, Hadley H. "Bad Gun Policy, But Good Gun Politics." US News. U.S.News &
World Report, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Perry, Mark J. "Gun-Homicide Rate Decreased as Gun Ownership Increased." CNS
News. 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Rosenfeld, Everett. "Obama Announces Gun Control Plans: 'I Believe in the Second
Amendment'" CNBC. CNBC, 05 Jan. 2016. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Spitzer, Robert. "Nutty Gun Rhetoric Meets Reality." US News. U.S.News & World
Report, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

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TedxMilehigh. "8 Big Pros and Cons of the 2nd Amendment." ConnectUS. 14 Feb.
2015. Web. 03 Apr. 2016