I think the gun control opponents fall into two categories:
People who sell firearms and accessories: It is in the best interests of their profit margin to oppose all gun control laws. Naturally, if we limit sales and ban certain products, their profit margins will decrease and narrow. This is why we have gun rights activists and lobbyists. They use the second amendment to protect their profits.
Citizens who may or may not own firearms, but are adamant about the second amendment and feel any talk about gun control is an attempt to abolish an inalienable right: These people put their fear of losing a right they may or may not use or even need ahead of logic.
It’s important to actually understand the full intention of the second amendment:
“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.”
There are two ways in which the amendment itself requires gun control laws. First is the inclusion of the word “bear” in “right of the people to keep and bear arms”; a right that should not be infringed. If it were to keep and display arms without restriction this word would read “bare”, as I suspect most people interpret. In this application “to bear arms” means to hold up under, and be capable, of armaments. To be capable of armaments is open to subjective criticism, hence gun control laws. This is already in effect to a degree, subject to varying degrees of freedom by state, in which you must prove your capability to have firearms. This is the focal point of gun control proponents, in that this is not adequately defined or enforced.
The second is the interpretation to circumstances in which the right to bear arms is applied. Do the right to bear arms only apply to a militia? If so, if one does not belong to a militia, do they have a right to bear arms? This would probably never be the interpretation. A militia, by definition, is a body of individuals enrolled for military service who serve full time only in militaries. We could argue that all able adults are in a militia, and would act in an emergency for our own individual safety or safety for our community. Regardless the interpretation of a militia, the amendment requires a “well regulated” one. This implies regulation of the right to bear arms.
There is no denying the fact the arms trade in America is regulated, it’s just a matter of how effectively it is regulated. It has been apparent that it is not effectively regulated. This amendment, with the other 9 of the bill of rights, was adopted into law in 1791. In that time, the US was a new country, and more susceptible to a declaration of war on our own soil in which an individuals’ right owning a firearm was necessary to national security. It is now only useful for personal security, and we must adapt the regulations to also ensure personal security from firearms.
To do that we need a reasonable solution that upholds ones right to own a firearm with the regulation required to provide security to citizens from firearms. The logical approach would be to analyze past events, corroborate worldwide statistics with gun laws, and find root causes to the tragedies that require regulation. It would be the responsibility of our elected officials to start this conversation.
However, everyone has their own solution they would like to see in effect, and I’m no different, but I always try to take a scientific approach in solving a problem, and I would hope our legislators and experts on the issue would do the same, as would proponents and opponents of regulation alike. I think it is important to understand that in a world of nearly 7 billion people, all with different religious and moral views, evident oppression and violence, and different sociological views and economic standards, that violence is going to occur. There will never be an elimination of violence, no matter how positive we think.
Banning the ownership of firearms is not acceptable, but neither is full armament of citizens. Logically, if the presence of guns is a contributing problem of mass violence, then introducing more guns – more contributions to the problem is just, well, silly. You don’t get rid of the smell of trash by adding more waste to the pile. I hear the case “if the teachers were armed, this wouldn’t have occurred”. This is speculation. At most this would mitigate the effect of the attack, but it would not prevent it; however even this assumption is speculative. If there is a possibility of a potential victim being armed, would this necessarily deter the potential suspect from carrying out an attack? I don’t think that is true. If it were, there would only be attacks against citizens in which the attacker knew could not be armed. Consider the attacker who recently opened fire in a mall in Oregon. There was a good possibility that he would open fire on citizens with concealed firearms, and even police officers, yet that did not deter him from carrying out the attack.
Complete disarmament of citizens is not effective, either. It is a known fact that criminals do not necessarily follow the law. There will always be a way to obtain a firearm, even if it is illegal to do so. Sure, criminalizing the use of and banning all firearms would mitigate the number of gun deaths, but it would not prevent them entirely, nor would it prevent other forms of violent acts. It would also reduce one’s ability to protect themselves in cases necessitating the use of a firearm for such a reason.
Understanding root causes to gun deaths and mass attacks are important in providing effective solutions to the problem. It is apparent that the availability and lack of regulating gun procurement and mass capacity arms and accessories is a root cause. This is apparent because in the last two mass attacks, the suspects had access to both multiple, automatic firearms as well as mass capacity accessories. In the Aurora shooting, the attacker legally purchased weapons while being treated by a psychologist. He was able to obtain large capacity magazines for his weapons to allow him to fire more rounds of ammunition before he needed to reload his weapon. He also obtained body armor that reduced the effectiveness of an attack against him, either in an attempt to increase his casualty count, or to afford him the opportunity to fight off a counterattack and escape. Either way, his motive to kill was still there, but his ability to kill multiple people was a variable made possible by enabling the instruments of his attacks to maximize casualties. If he did not have access to high capacity magazines and body armor, would that have deterred him from carrying out the attack? Again this is speculative, and I would be surprised if this did deter him. I do think it is a strong possibility that he would not have as many victims, that people would be more able to stop him, or have a better chance of escape.
No the case of the Sandy Hook shooter. The weapons he used were owned by his mother, who was also a victim. He also had access to high capacity magazines for his weapons. There is no question that increasing the ability to fire repeatedly for extended periods of times decreases the ability to defend against said attack.
In both recent scenarios, it would seem that banning high capacity armaments and increasing restrictions on gun ownership would have an immediate effect. It is important for opponents to this regulation to know that this does not prevent one from owning firearms. This enforces the expectation that one is responsible for owning firearms. I have yet to hear an argument in why owning these things are a requirement for effective defense against an attacker. The argument that one should have access to the same weapons they could face an attack from is an irresponsible one - Russia could drop a nuclear bomb on your home, but that doesn’t mean we should all have our own personal nuclear weapons. Limiting the availability of articles used in mass attacks would logically reduce the number of casualties in the event of an attack, and may reduce the occurrence as well.
Finally the argument of more effective mental health programs: It is apparent that most suspects in mass shootings, or mass attacks in general suffer from a mental illness that may prevent them from reasoning against carrying out an attack. We apparently do not know enough about these mental illnesses, or how to treat them, that enable a person to carry out these attacks. Understanding the illness, and better responding to and treating them, would surely mitigate these attacks. Anticipating the effect a mental illness may have on ones’ ability to own a firearm should be investigated as well. Let’s say that in his quest to purchase a firearm, the Aurora shooter had to submit to a background check in which it indicated he was seeing a psychologist, and it was a requirement for his psychologist to sign off on the permit. This wouldn’t necessarily prevent him from obtaining a weapon, but it would definitely make it more difficult. Identifying indicators of one’s inability to responsibly own a firearm may further mitigate the ability of one to carry out an attack. Again, the second amendment protects the right for one the “bear” arms – to have the ability to own arms, which indicates a responsibility to own arms, and the presence of regulation to ensure an ability to responsibly own arms.
Regardless what the solutions are, they need to be logical and well thought out. It would seem that we maintain an ineffective system of regulation because proponents of gun control laws cannot adequately influence legislators and gun law opponents to ensure the effectiveness of proposed solutions.
