Gun control

About: Gun control is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1211 publications have been published within this topic receiving 16516 citations. The topic is also known as: firearms control & gun law.

The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent

Abstract: "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." —Amendment II, United States Constitution The Second Amendment is regularly invoked by opponents of gun control, but H. Richard Uviller and William G. Merkel argue the amendment has nothing to contribute to debates over private access to firearms. In The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent , Uviller and Merkel show how postratification history has sapped the Second Amendment of its meaning. Starting with a detailed examination of the political principles of the founders, the authors build the case that the amendment's second clause (declaring the right to bear arms) depends entirely on the premise set out in the amendment's first clause (stating that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state). The authors demonstrate that the militia envisioned by the framers of the Bill of Rights in 1789 has long since disappeared from the American scene, leaving no lineal descendants. The constitutional right to bear arms, Uviller and Merkel conclude, has evaporated along with the universal militia of the eighteenth century. Using records from the founding era, Uviller and Merkel explain that the Second Amendment was motivated by a deep fear of standing armies. To guard against the debilitating effects of militarism, and against the ultimate danger of a would-be Caesar at the head of a great professional army, the founders sought to guarantee the existence of well-trained, self-armed, locally commanded citizen militia, in which service was compulsory. By its very existence, this militia would obviate the need for a large and dangerous regular army. But as Uviller and Merkel describe the gradual rise of the United States Army and the National Guard over the last two hundred years, they highlight the nation's abandonment of the militia ideal so dear to the framers. The authors discuss issues of constitutional interpretation in light of radically changed social circumstances and contrast their position with the arguments of a diverse group of constitutional scholars including Sanford Levinson, Carl Bogus, William Van Alstyne, and Akhil Reed Amar. Espousing a centrist position in the polarized arena of Second Amendment interpretation, this book will appeal to those wanting to know more about the amendment's relevance to the issue of gun control, as well as to those interested in the constitutional and political context of America's military history.

Tropes in the Rhetoric of Gun Rights: A Pragma-Dialectic Analysis

Abstract: This essay offers a pragma-dialectic analysis of recurring arguments proffered in response to gun control legislation. While these arguments do not appear to be persuasive enough to win many new ad...

Gun Violence and Human Rights

Abstract: This Article examines the U.S. gun violence crisis in light of the U.S. government’s international human rights obligations. The United States has more firearm deaths than other high-income countries and it is estimated that there are now more guns than people in the country. The patchwork nature of U.S. gun laws, indicative of the political landscape around firearms and gun control, is insufficient to protect the U.S. population and is in contrast to research showing that gun control laws prevent gun violence. Reasonable gun control measures, such as mandatory licensing and background checks, assault weapons bans, and safe storage requirements, are not only constitutional, but may be legally required for the United States to fulfill its legal international human rights obligations. International human rights law, found in treaties ratified by the United States as well as customary law, are the “supreme law of the land” pursuant to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. They require the United States to exercise due diligence to protect its population and prevent foreseeable harms, including the many human rights violations associated with the proliferation of firearms and gun violence, such as the right to life, the right to security, the freedom of religion, special protection for children and the right to education, and protection against racial discrimination, among others. This Article provides a human rights framework for the U.S. gun violence crisis that can bolster arguments advanced under U.S. law and influence the political climate in the United States. Given that the difficulty in enacting reasonable gun control measures is largely political rather than legal, considering the problem from a human rights perspective offers real value. Human rights remedies are not the only response to America’s gun violence problem, but they are an important element of the solution. As a human rights rhetoric for gun violence becomes normalized, these arguments can also shore up legal and political arguments advanced on other grounds, so that gun control advocates find themselves with a new “tool kit” in the struggle to convince politicians – and courts – that addressing gun violence through the adoption of reasonable gun control measures is legally, as well as morally, required.

The Battle Over the Brady Bill and the Future of Gun Control Advocacy

Abstract: No matter how effective a legislative scheme is, legislation alone will not eradicate the deeply rooted culture of gun violence that exists in this country. Accordingly, Handgun Control divides its efforts between legislative and non-legislative efforts. In this regard, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence carries out the non-legislative interventions of Handgun Control. These efforts include working with elementary, secondary and high schools to promote a gun violence reduction curriculum; litigating on behalf of gun victims; defending gun control legislation in the courts; working with the entertainment industry concerning the messages in popular entertainment about gun violence; and working with the public health profession both to research the causes of and the most effective solutions to gun violence, and to disseminate the message that guns do not make us safer. It is our belief that only through such a comprehensive, multifaceted approach, can America hope to reduce the gun violence that affects us all.

Gun owners, ethics, and the problem of evil: A response to the Las Vegas shooting

Abstract: This article examines the ways in which American gun owners deploy a particular ethical system in their responses to instances of mass gun violence. I argue that anthropology is uniquely situated to provide a better understanding of how this ethical system is produced, thereby allowing us to move beyond the falsely dichotomous terms of the gun control debate. Recently returned from a period of fieldwork with a gun rights activist community in San Diego, California, I use ethnographic data to show that owning a firearm brings with it an ethical system that makes the prospect of giving up guns in the aftermath of a mass shooting even less attractive to my informants. Furthermore, this article focuses on what has been called “the problem of evil” by demonstrating how my informants order the world into “good guys” and “bad guys.” This opposition becomes personified into a more general notion of good versus evil, thereby placing particular people in the category of the human and others in the category of the inhuman, or monstrous.