Divsive Issues of Gun Control

This idea that a person's philosophy on gun control can serve as a political litmus test has been seen repeatedly. Hundreds of elections from the local to the national level have been run on the issue of gun control, with other (arguably more important in terms of the number of people affected) issues almost entirely forgotten (Vellinga, 1998; Dionne, 1999). Until the past several years, the pro-gun National Rifle Association had a nearly unblemished record in defeating candidates at all levels who did went on the record for even mild forms of gun control. Thus candidates would do nearly anything they felt was ethically possible not to arouse the ire of the NRA. In recent years, however

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ive supporters. This perspective argues that one should take a literal interpretation of the amendment but in a restrictive sense: the Second Amendment refers to militia and that is precisely what it has always meant and still means. Citizens serving in the militia are to be well armed and the amendment has nothing to say about the rest of Americans. The counter-argument to this is that sometimes the government itself is what citizens must fight. If government becomes a tyrannical force, then one cannot depend on militia to protect the rights of the individual citizens since the militia are elements of the government and are thus tyrannical themselves. Thus, it is perhaps even more important for those outside of the military than for those inside it to carry arms (Stem the arms race, 1999, The San Diego Union-Tribune). Each of these positions has an internal logic to it and it is possible to understand how people might come to arrive at any one of these positions through a particular rational process. But the heat behind gun control debate makes it clear that much more is at stake to people on this issue than the idea of arms control or even of the real dangers posed by guns themselves. Lying just under the surface of deb
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Approximate Word count = 2391
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)