Gun Control and the Second Amendment
For the past few decades, guns have been a major cause of crimes and death. There have been many shooting cases. However, guns provide good protection against criminals and other forms of crimes. Fifty-three percent of criminals did not commit a crime because they feared that the victim might be armed with a gun. Sixty percent of criminals fear armed civilians more than police men. The Second Amendment is our freedom to own guns and allow us to have protection, but the gun control law will diminish the meaning of the Second Amendment and make some people more vulnerable. In the United States, the Second Amendment may not be necessary as it was in the past such as the 1920s with the rise of crime rates and with gun control, the Second Amendment will have no meaning in the constitution. Gun control leads a major controversy in the United States. The Second Amendment has caused many arguments against gun control and the constitutional limits it creates. Gun control laws first appeared during the early 1900s. Those laws specified where and how firearms could be used and restricted the carrying of concealed weapons. New York State’s Sullivan Law, which was one of the earliest efforts to regulate guns, strictly limited the sale, possession, and carrying of guns. By the late 1990s, more than twenty thousand state and local statues regulated guns. Federal gun control laws were enacted in 1927, 1934, and 1938. Those laws forbade mail-order pistol sales, regulated firearms dealers, and limited possession of ganster weapons. The Gun Control Act of 1968 tightened the earlier laws and prohibited sone categories of persons from gun ownership. The Brady Law of 1993 imposed a waiting period on handgun purchases and banned sales of some types of semiautomatic weapons. In 1972, enforcement of federal gun laws was assigned to the Treasury Department’s Bureau Alcohol. Tobacco, and Firearms. As the twentieth century continued, the more gun control laws were established. Such laws banned guns with high potential of misuse. As the twentieth century ended, states and governments realized that the effectiveness of the gun control laws did not be as effective as they thought it would. Studies showed that the gun control laws did not influence more violence. However, studies focusing on the effects of one single law in one area often found that the gun control laws did reduce violence. The NRA supported the fight against gun control laws. They were successful with the help of millions of other supports who view firearms access as a basic right under the Second Amendment to the constitution.