| •What is the collective interpretation of the Second Amendment and what does
this imply for the regulation of guns?
•What is the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment and
what does this imply for the regulation of guns?
•According to proponents of gun control, what effect does citizen ownership
of guns have on crime and injury?
•According to opponents of gun control, what effect does citizen ownership of
guns have on crime and injury?
Groups of 3 students will create a commercial ad that supports or opposes gun
control
•A Writer: Conducts research and completes a Venn Diagram for competing
sides
•An Actor: Performs the dialogue and scenes in the spot
•A Producer: Composes the commercial script and films the spot
Have each group present its commercial. Identify the issues and concerns
of interest groups that support and oppose gun control.
Debating the “Mighty Constitutional Opposites”
Debating the Gun Issue
Many Americans agree that guns are winding up in the wrong hands and being
used in the wrong ways. From there discussion bursts into an array of
incompatible views, posing questions with no easy answers. In balancing the
individual’s “right to bear arms” with the need for public safety, should the
United States
• Concentrate on enforcing existing laws?
• Enact more gun laws?
• Insist that manufacturers include safety features
• Ban certain types of firearms?
• Abolish the right to bear arms?
There are many arguments for and against different means of gun control, and
the answers to the questions that arise vary greatly depending on who has the
floor and how that person interprets the information coming from the many
different sides of the gun issue. But the principal arguments fall into two
categories: those that center on the meaning of the “right to bear arms” and
those weighing the extent to which gun possession by ordinary individuals
tends to increase the risk of injury or exacerbate crime.
Right to Bear Arms 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.” Proponents of gun control
legislation argue that this language should be collectively interpreted—that
the Second Amendment refers to an organized group (militia) whose function is
to protect the nation’s freedom, such as the National Guard. This view’s
supporters have pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States
v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), which comments that the “obvious purpose” of
the Second Amendment is “to assure the continuation and render possible the
effectiveness of” state militia forces.
Gun control opponents are unpersuaded. They argue that this amendment, like
others in the Bill of Rights, simply affirms a right that individuals already
have, one that the Bill of Rights expressly forbids the government to touch.
Quotes from the Founders are used to reinforce this argument, including
Thomas Jefferson’s statement, “No man shall ever be debarred the use of
arms.” Many proponents of this interpretation of the Second Amendment fear
that gun control is tyranny. Supporters of this position point to the 2007
Parker v. District of Columbia decision in which the D.C. Circuit Court
struck down a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds. The court
interpreted the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to bear
arms. Gun control supporters counter those statements such as Jefferson’s in
no way prohibit gun regulation. If this argument is accepted, another is
close behind: how far can regulation go before it starts to infringe on the
right to bear arms?
Crime and Injury Does gun possession by ordinary individuals tend to produce
a high percentage of otherwise preventable injury and death? Or, are guns in
the hands of private individuals an important crime deterrent?
The public has heard many arguments that guns at home are much less likely to
defend against unknown intruders than they are to cause accidental, suicidal,
and angry shootings of people belonging or known to the household. Tragic
cases of shooting deaths among juveniles support this viewpoint, as do
incidents of one adult shooting another over a disagreement. Examples
involving juveniles include the planned murder of students by fellow students
at Columbine High School in Colorado, as well as a case from Michigan in
which one six-year-old pupil killed another with a gun from home. In April
2007, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people with semi-
automatic guns he had purchased. Gun control proponents use such tragedies to
bolster many aspects of their arguments: If the guns hadn’t been available to
the juveniles, they couldn’t have used them. In the case of the six-year-
olds, if the gun had had a safety lock, the accident would have been much
less likely to have occurred. Gun regulations with stern penalties for owners
and sellers—as opposed to an outright ban on private gun ownership—would
protect communities while not infringing on the individual’s basic right to
bear arms, according to these arguments.
Gun control opponents offer their own statistics, using them to disagree with
regulation proponents at different levels. For example, some opponents argue
serious research has indicated that the “right to bear arms” stops criminal
attacks approximately 2.5 million times a year. Of these incidents, a large
number do not involve firing the weapon—just showing it is enough to make the
attacker retreat. Furthermore, regulation opponents claim that there is no
research to substantiate the theory that private gun ownership turns
differences of opinion into bloody shootouts. In fact, since the
liberalization of the concealed carry laws, over one million Americans have
obtained a license to carry a firearm, and the accidental death rate has not
even slightly increased. Can regulation proponents back up their claims with
statistics and research, rather than simply relying on what regulation
opponents call anecdotal information? Or are such data already available, but
ignored, by the other side?
STANDARDS
NETS Standards 1-6
NYS Social Studies Standards - Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government | |
