Gun Control Debate in US
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Prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage - the British military Governor of the state - ordered that all private arms in Boston be deposited with the British magistrates, presumably to be stored and eventually returned to the owners. Many American citizens obeyed the order. They surrendered 1,778 muskets, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses on the eve before British troops initiated their siege on the United States at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill (Halbrook, 1986, p. 151). Several years later, the event so impressed the framers of the new American Constitution that the "right to bear arms" was codified for all times in the Second Amendment. However, the issue of gun control has reemerged in recent decades. Court interpretations of the Second Amendment have opened the door to government restrictions on gun ownership. The purpose of this research is to examine the pros and cons in the current debate over gun control. It is herein argued that the lessons offered by General Gage are as valuable today as they were in 1775. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1791, reads as follows: "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." Despite the seemingly straightforward language, this amendment has been subject to considerable scrutiny by the c
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societies. For example, in terms of deaths caused by handguns alone in 1983, 35 people were killed in Japan, eight in Great Britain, six in Canada - and 9,014 in the United States (Long, 1989, p. 71). In American urban areas, handguns account for more than 80 percent of gun killings and nearly all gun robberies.
These alarming figures are often cited as evidence of the need for stricter gun laws. It is argued that the availability of guns instigates violent crime. But the numbers above do not speak for themselves. Psychological studies on whether gun availability nurtures violent behavior are almost equally divided between those concluding there is a "weapons effect," and those indicating there is not (Kleck, 1986, p. 36). Most of these studies involve laboratory experiments and are widely criticized on grounds of method as well as the reliability of generalizing from the laboratory to real life. Furthermore, the European experience offers contradictory clues as to the effectiveness of gun control. Israel and Switzerland, for example, have more guns per person than the United States, yet these nations also have very low gun homicide rates (Long, 1989, p. 87). Consequently, gun control does not deserve credit for the low
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1815
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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