Registration of Handguns Legislation

There is little argument over the issue of whether or not guns cause devastation in American society, for it is clear that they do. In 1990 it was reported by the U.S. Department of Justice that some 680,000 Americans each year are confronted by criminals with handguns, and more than 24,000 are killed or wounded in these confrontations. This has led the American Bar Association to conclude that the availability of guns in America is out of control and that strong gun control legislation is needed. In response to this perception, the ABA sponsored two measures before Congress in 1991. The first of these was the Brady bill requiring a waiting period before a gun can be purchased in order to give police time to conduct a background check on the purchaser to determine previous criminal convictions or signs of mental illness. T

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the Constitution and claim that any effort to regulate handguns or to ban specific weapons is unconstitutional. 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." Legal scholar Sanford Levinson points out that the Second Amendment has been largely ignored by contemporary scholars of the Constitution, perhaps because they are ill at ease with the idea of private ownership of guns. However, the Amendment really should be given more attention because of its vagueness: No one has ever described the Constitution as marvel of clarity, and the Second Amendment is perhaps one of the worst drafted of all its provisions (Levinson 315). The Amendment has what no other Amendment has--a preamble that seems to set out its purpose. This has generated much argument over whether the provision applies only to the militia, and over the meaning of "militia" in the modern world. Analysts who wish to limit the second Amendment's force focus on this "preamble" as setting out a restrictive purpose. An examination of the history of the forming of the provision shows a record that is complicated and that does not fully answ
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Approximate Word count = 2373
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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