Gun Control

Last Thursday, a gunman shot and killed a police officer on Virginia Tech’s campus, then killed himself shortly after. This shooting created national attention because it reminds us of four years ago, when a Virginia Tech student, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and injured 25 on the same campus. While large-scale American shootings such as Virginia Tech and Columbine receive national attention, the truth is that thousands go unrecognized each year. This leads us to ask, “What should we do?” Nearly every shooting with national attention in America has produced some form of legislation, but the only one to be passed was Bush’s federal gun control measure in 2008 that gave money to the states to help make gun-buying background checks more effective. The last law made to limit what kinds of guns can be purchased in America was Clinton’s “Federal Assault Weapons Ban”, which expired in 2004. This law banned the selling of guns that were considered “assault weapons,” but no one really knew what that meant. What the law did do that was very effective, however, was ban the sale of semi-automatic firearms with clip sizes of greater than 10 rounds. This law satisfied everyone in the gun control fight because it allowed for the sale of guns powerful enough to hunt and defend one’s self, while also illegalizing guns powerful enough for shootings the size of Virginia Tech and Columbine. Now there have been several attempts at renewing Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban, but none have reached the floor for a vote so far, because the law as a whole is so unpopular. But I say we renew the best part of the law and once again make it illegal to purchase a firearm with a clip size of greater than 10 rounds.

The issue of gun control in America is ultimately derived from the Second Amendment, which 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.” The controversy here lies as to where the limit should be set on what “arms” Americans have the right to “bear.” Some believe the right should be absolute, that any and all arms should be legal. Others draw the line at obvious limitations, such as nuclear missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Gun control radicals, on the other hand, believe that the amendment gives the right to bear arms exclusively to “well-regulated militias” and that ordinary citizens should not have guns. When determining where the line is drawn, it is important to understand that no right is absolute. Even though the First Amendment gives me the right to free speech, I can’t yell “Fire!” in a museum when there isn’t one, because the ensuing rush would likely cause injury to others. My right to unlimited free speech would conflict with other’s rights to not be injured. Much in the same way, the right to own a gun can conflict with public safety.

Another common source of debate on gun control is the relevance of the Second Amendment today. The Bill of Rights was produced well before 1837, when the first handgun capable of firing multiple rounds without reloading was made. Not to mention 2011, when you can buy as much live ammunition as you want at a local Wal-Mart, purchase a rifle at a bank (Bowling for Columbine), and own a large machine gun capable of shooting 20 bullets per second. In the shooting in Tucson, Arizona in January of this year, a man killed 6 people, on a failed assassination attempt on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, with an automatic pistol he had legally purchased a month prior. Surely the Second Amendment would have had set specific limitations on legal arms if our founding fathers knew the extent of power and ease of obtaining that guns would have in the future, right? The answer is that we don’t know. We are left to change our laws to a changing society. Gun control is so difficult to regulate because it is not the American society’s lust and admiration for guns that’s changing; it’s the guns themselves.

Semi-automatic pistols with large 32 round magazines, like those used in Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Tucson, Arizona can be found standard at any local gun store. Why, on Earth, would any citizen need 32 bullets at one time? Who thought that that was a good idea? There is a difference between a firearm of sport or self-defense and a weapon capable of ending 32 lives in seconds, much like there is a difference between yelling “Fire!” in a museum and actually burning the museum down. There is absolutely no practical purpose that a clip of that size can serve that a much smaller one cannot.

Today, there are more firearms in the United States than people. Of America’s guns, less than half belong to the military and police combined. Yet even with most of our guns belonging to “good, law-abiding citizens,” they still find their way into headlines and news reports all too often, only to be covered as a human mistake. It has to be the gun’s fault every once in a while. America experimented with Clinton’s “Federal Assault Weapons Ban,” to discover that we didn’t like it. But what we didn’t like was its complication, not its intention. The section of the ban illegalizing the sale of firearms with clips of greater than ten bullets would have prevented the shootings of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Tucson, Arizona. But why wait for the next American massacre to deal with the ongoing debate of gun control, when we can once again prevent people from buying arms with such destructive capabilities? Yes, we, as Americans, have the right to own guns, but even greater, the responsibility to defend public safety.

Bowling for Columbine. By Michael Moore. Dir. Michael Moore. 2002.

Nagourney, Adam, and Jennifer Steinhauer. "A Clamor for Gun Limits, but Few Expect Real Changes." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2011. Web.

Lock, Stock and Barrel: Understanding the Firearms Industry‏. YouTube. TheNSSF, 14 Mar. 2011. Web.

-Also, I couldn't find a way to fix the white highlighting on a quote I copied/pasted and half of my essay. Sorry about that.