I
do believe that citizens have the right to bear arms; I also believe that there
should be legal limitations placed on that ownership in certain situations. Before I present my side I want to address a
few issue I had with the chapter and the authors logic and reasoning. In his chapter, LaFollette (2007) discussed the
act of the agent versus the object; in other words, guns do not kill people
people do. He also made the inference
that cars do not kill people, drivers do, however, because cars were not
designed to be “inherently dangerous” they do not fall into the same category
as guns. In yet another analogy, he
claimed that because nuclear weapons were created to kill or injure a large
amount of people they were also not in the same category as guns. I cannot agree with these logics given the
fact that in all instances a person is in control of the object. It is a person’s decision to drive recklessly
or drunk, or to push the button to release a nuclear weapon, just as it is
their decision to kill or injure someone with a gun.
Guns
have been around for centuries; in fact, our ancestors needed those guns to
hunt for food in order to survive. While
things have certainly changed over the years and the majority of people do not
need to shoot their own food, there are still people who enjoy hunting. Hunting is also necessary to control animal
populations, so should we only allow people to own shotguns and hunting
rifles? If the answer to this is yes
because handguns are more dangerous and not used for hunting, then my argument
is that motorcycles should be banned as they are more dangerous than cars, “as motorcycles are less stable
and less visible than cars and often have high-performance capabilities and
when motorcycles crash, their riders lack the protection of an enclosed
vehicle, so they're more likely to be injured or killed” (Motorcyles, 2014) and
they serve the same purpose as a car.
If citizens
of our country have been possessing firearms for centuries then why are we now
talking about taking that right away?
One would assume that it is a result of what some see as a rise in gun
related crime, which is not
exactly the case. According to the
Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics (n.d.), on the FBI website, Murder and non-negligent
manslaughter dropped between 1970 and 2012, however,
the number of forcible rapes has more than doubled. The argument about the country being a more
dangerous place as a result of citizens having guns is not a strong one,
especially when the number of property crimes has risen which would mean
homeowners are in need of protection in their own homes. A lack of gun safety is also an argument some
make for gun control, however, according to Stell (2001), gun accidents
declined 40 in the 1990’s. There are
those who feel banning guns will keep them out of the hands of criminals, but
as the same with drugs they will find a way to get their hands on them.
In
response to Stell (2001) Lafollette (2001) stated that “US children were
seventeen times more likely than other developed countries, to be killed by a
gun, and nine times more likely to die from an accidental gunshot wound” (p.
36). This is a classic case of assuming
that when a gun is in a home a child will find it. The same could be said of prescription
medicine, if a parent does not appropriately store their medication away from
their child there is a chance the child will find it. It is the same for guns; there are safety
precautions that need to be in effect to keep people safe. LaFollette (2001) does offer the coloration
between poverty and crime, and when the country’s economics are in good shape
crime rates go down. This would lead to
the theory that we have a social issue not necessarily a gun problem.
The
constitution assures us the freedom of speech, religion, and to bear arms and
yet only one of these freedoms seem to be in danger. The freedom of speech has certainly found
many a reporter in hot water, but it most likely hasn’t been the direct cause
of multiple deaths. The same cannot be
said for religion, just in the past few years, religion has been at the center
of multiple mass shooting in our country alone, from the San Bernardino
shooting to the Orlando nightclub massacre, yet no one is talking about
revoking our right to religious freedom.
While I understand that guns were the weapons of choice in each of these
examples, it was the person behind the gun who was responsible for pulling the
trigger.
LaFollette, H. (2001). Controlling Guns. Criminal
Justice Ethics, 20(1), 34.
LaFollette, H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.
Motorcycles. (2014). Retrieved July 23, 2016, from
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/motorcycles
Stell, L. K. (2001). Gun Control and the Regulation of
Fundamental Rights. Criminal Justice
Ethics, 20(1), 28.
Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved July
23, 2016, from
http://www.bjs.gov/ucrdata/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm
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