"Ken Anderson"American Governments Gun control has been a very topical political issue discussed in the recent elections both at the presidential and midterm elections. Donald Trump who was the Republican nominee was a very pro-gun rights advocate who thoroughly believes in the citizens rights to bear arms according to the second amendment of the constitution. Hillary Clinton who was the Democratic party nominee was a very pro-gun control advocate who believed that much more regulation and banning of weapons was need here in the United States. There have been seven mass shootings since 2016 that had more than 10 unfortunate victims’ lives taken from them. Some of these reach numbers upward of fifty-eight people killed. Some of these shootings include the Las Vegas shooting at the Jason Aldean concert as well as the Sandy Hook school shooting and the Orlando night club shooting. There have also been smaller attacks on other schools and churches across the United states. The difficult question that many argue is whether heavy regulation of legal U.S guns as well as banning of certain legal U.S guns will solve the problem or increase the amount of violence committed on innocent victims? Gun control and the second amendment were believed to be some of the major deciding factors in the Presidential election of President Donald Trump. There is no database that accurately depicts the amount of people who own guns in America but from surveys done around the country it is predicted that about 42-46% of citizens in America live in a household where there are guns. That is almost half of the United States citizens who own guns. Many of those who are very protective of their rights to own guns and defend their property, family and property from those who try to steal or harm.
In a somewhat recent study done by epidemiologist Anthony Fabio of Pittsburgh’s Graduate school of public health in 2016 found that lawful gun owners commit less than a fifth of all the gun crimes. Fabio teamed up with the Pittsburgh police to trace the origins of all the 893 firearms that police had seized at crime scenes in 2008. What he found out was that 79% of those guns seized at a crime scene, the perpetrator was carrying a firearm owned by someone else. Meaning that they were stolen and illegally sold on either the black market or on the streets. An article by The New York Times talks about the amount of people who died at the hand of a gun in 2018. The number was 40,000 which was up 1,000 from the previous year in 2017. These numbers included the mass shootings such as the one in Las Vegas and all the other ones across the United states, this number also includes single fatality shootings as well. As you read in depth of the article however you will read that more than two-thirds of those deaths were suicides by gun. So, while the numbers seem to have increased a little bit, it seems as though guns weren’t the major issue in shootings of innocent people. The big problem seems to be people’s mental health state. Republicans have been stressing this as being the source of the violence that has taken place in the United states in the past couple years and seems to be their focus. Democrats, however, feel that the main issue is that states aren’t doing enough background checks and that guns are the issue not the people who are behind them necessarily. They want to regulate the sales of guns and ammunition. Regulating means that there would be background checks on the sale of ammunition, which has happened in California at all retails shops that sell ammo and guns, as well as stiffer restrictions on certain parts that are made for certain weapons. The parts include the magazines being able to drop out with just pushing the magazine release button, certain types of pistol grips aren’t allowed on certain weapons. These are just some of the proposed regulations that the Democratic party is proposing nationwide. As previously mentioned, some states have already put in to action some of these regulations. Some states however, such as Missouri have changed their laws to make any attempt to change their second amendment right with regulation from the federal level to be illegal in its state. They have essentially banned any federal regulation in their state and its citizens follow exactly what the constitution says. We are beginning to see other states slowly follow in their footsteps as well. As mentioned, some states have already put in to action some of these regulations. Democrats have also been in a long fight with the NRA and views about guns and what they believe to constitutionally correct. Democrats haven’t seemed to be very successful with their proposed gun regulation and control agenda nation wide especially with the election of Donald Trump as well as the Republican election of Senate and House of Representative leaders. President Trump said in a statement his feelings about gun control as being that he doesn’t want to limit citizens right to bear arms but to fix defection gun legislation and spend more time and money on our mental health treatments.
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AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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