Gun Control Right to Bear Arms Essay

Embedded into the express rights and freedoms of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights is the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment states explicitly the purpose for its existence: "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 Second Amendment is not, as may be commonly believed, uniquely American. As with many of America's legal institutions, the Second Amendment can be traced to English common law (Eichenwald, 2013). The Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights as a safeguard against unexpected government tyranny, to empower the people, and to permit the formation of militias to defend against common enemies.

However, the Second Amendment takes on new meaning in the age of the mass-produced handgun. The Second Amendment has also been interpreted anachronistically. When the Second Amendment was drafted, armament was generally bulky and slow-loading. Advancements in technologies have permitted small semi-automatics to enter the munitions market. Moreover, a black market of weapons has proliferated the possession of firearms in the United States. Furthermore, the language of the Second Amendment unequivocally advocates a "well regulated militia" and not the individual right to carry a weapon in public under the guise of needing self-defense.

Considering that altering the Amendment itself is unfeasible, there are two basic points-of-view regarding the Second Amendment. One is the "collective rights theory," and the other is the "individual right theory." The collective rights theory is the one generally espoused by Democrats. This point-of-view interprets the Second Amendment literally and encourages federal controls on firearms. The goal of the collective rights theory is to reduce gun violence while still protecting the rights and freedoms of Americans.

Republicans and Libertarians generally espouse the individual right theory. This view presumes that the Constitution allows for the personal armament of individuals for whatever reason they see fit, and disavows the right of the federal government to restrict gun manufacture, sales, distribution, ownership, and even usage.

The issues surrounding the Second Amendment are divisive, and have become increasingly so in the past few decades. Reasons for the shifts in public consciousness regarding gun control include increased gun violence and the emboldening of the National Rifle Association. Historically, Americans have tacitly supported federal regulation of guns. The first federal gun control law passed in 1934 as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. This law imposed taxes on guns and created the first national registry of gun ownership. The reasoning behind the law was to combat the proliferation of street level crime in the gangster era, and also allowed for the collection of federal moneys on the sale and distribution of guns. From this point, interstate gun sales were recorded and indicted violent criminals were prohibited from purchasing guns ("History of gun-control legislation," n.d.). Even earlier, gun control was believed to be a states' rights issue. In 1876 the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Cruikshank that the Second Amendment "applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit," ("Second Amendment," n.d.). Gun control remained a part of American domestic policy throughout the 20th century, until the 1980s and the Reagan era. It was during this time that the NRA and the Republican Party teamed up in unprecedented ways, whereas the Democratic Party had remained traditionally in favor of reasonable gun control measures such as Johnson's Safe Streets Act of 1968.

Republican Stance: Overview

Republicans tend to use the individual right theory to support a liberal (meaning loose) interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Republican individual right theory argument encapsulated as "the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion," (Lunn & Winkler, n.d.). The Republican stance has been substantiated in recent Supreme Court cases like District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, in which the Court "proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms," ("Second Amendment," n.d.). District of Columbia v. Heller essentially struck down a D.C. handgun ban as being "violative of that right," ("Second Amendment," n.d.). In another landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. City of Chicago, in 2010, that the 14th Amendment substantiates the 2nd Amendment and overturned a Chicago citywide handgun ban.

Democrat Stance: Overview

The Democratic Party stance is based on the collective rights theory of the Second Amendment and supports various degrees of gun control at the federal level. Using this line of reasoning, "citizens do not have an individual right to possess guns and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies therefore possess the authority to regulate firearms without implicating a constitutional right," ("Second Amendment," n.d.). Moreover, the 2012 Democratic Party platform stated support for an "effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system," ("Democratic Party on Gun Control," n.d.). The Democratic Party also supports other restrictions on individual gun ownership such as "reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole -- so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few," ("Democratic Party on Gun Control," n.d.).

Republican Stance: Recent History

"For decades now, the N.R.A. and the rest of the gun lobby have had a grip on the Republican Party," (Cassidy, 2015). Central to the Republican party (GOP) platform is the right to bear arms in the interest of "self-defense," which the Party also calls a "God-given" right (GOP, 2015). The GOP (2015) expressly believes in "the right to obtain and store ammunition without registration," as well as in "enabling Americans to defend their homes and communities," via firearms (GOP, 2015). The GOP (2015) opposes the "improper collection of firearms sales information in the four southern border states," (GOP, 2015). Generally, the Republican Party has become overtly and unabashedly pro-gun in a way that goes beyond even the language used in the Second Amendment. As a result, "Republicans own guns more than two-to-one over Democrats," (Hepler, n.d.).

According to a survey by munitions manufacturer Smith and Wesson, the top reason for gun ownership is personal safety/self-defense, outranking hunting, recreation/sport, and target shooting combined," (Hepler, n.d.). There is an ingrained belief that Americans are under constant threat from their neighbors, inspired in part by political and media rhetoric. During the Reagan era, the pro-gun rhetoric escalated to unprecedented levels. In the golden age of the NRA, its then-president Charlton Heston famously stated that the government would have to take his guns from his "cold, dead hands."

The Reagan administration oversaw several laws liberalizing gun ownership, sales, and distribution. For example, the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 "limits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from inspecting gun dealers more than once a year, with follow-up inspections allowed only if multiple violations are found," (History of Gun Control Legislation," 2012). Gun control became back in fashion during the Clinton administration, true to Democratic Party platform. Predictably, the Republican administration under George W. Bush oversaw a resurgence of pro-gun laws including the 2003 Tiahrt Amendment, which "prohibits law enforcement from publicly releasing data showing where criminals bought their firearms," ("History of Gun Control Lesiglation," 2012). In 2005, Bush passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects the manufacturers against lawsuits.

Current Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential election are towing the party line on the Second Amendment. Reactions to school shootings range from insulting, such as when Ben Carson suggested that the victims' responses "had been inadequate," to dismissive, as when Jeb Bush simply said, "stuff happens," (Cassidy, 2015). Trump has said that the problem at Umpqua was that "no one on the scene, apart from the twenty-six-year-old shooter, was armed," and also said that he opposes a ban on assault weapons (Cassidy, 2015). Rubio appears to be the most moderate of all the Republican candidates on gun control, as he supports "reasonable restrictions" on gun sales, also supporting measures to "keep guns out of the hands of felons and the mentally ill," (Cassidy, 2015).

Democrat Stance: Recent History

Since Roosevelt's National Firearms Act of 1934, the Democratic Party has supported a more technically conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment, meaning that the Democratic Party favors gun control. For example, President Johnson's Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and Gun Control Act of 1968, became "the primary federal law regulating firearms," ("History of Gun Control Legislation," 2012). The Democratic Party platform is not anti-Second Amendment but it is based on the collective rights theory. The collective rights theory espoused by most Democrats has considerable historic precedent. At the Constitutional Convention, the framers eventually decided that the "federal government should have almost unfettered authority to establish peacetime standing armies and to regulate the militia," meaning that they supported a federal standing army more than a loose…