Proper Restrictions on Gun Ownership

Gun Control In light of events like Sandy Hood, Columbine, the Charleston church shooting, the on-air shooting of two reports in Virginia and many others, gun control is a topic that has remained a topic that is ever-present in the twenty-four hour news cycle of modern day America. Further, there are several cities right now that are the sites of some major and protracted gun violence. This violence and depravity is to the extent that some people assert that gun violence is a public health issue.

The author of this report will answer that question and will also speak to the ways in which gun purchases can be limited and regulated given the presence of the Second Amendment. While gun violence is certainly an issue that involves health, it is primarily a crime and punishment issue and should be dealt with as such. Analysis As easily discernible from the question and recent events, putting limitations on gun ownership is a bit difficult because the Second Amendment is deemed to be the law of the land.

Further, that law of the land is deemed to guarantee that citizens have the right to carry guns. However, the Second Amendment is much like the freedom of speech clause in the First Amendment in that there are limitations to speech. For example, the "crying wolf in a crowded theater" example is a common one and so is speech that is slanderous, libelous or otherwise defaming in nature. The Second Amendment is much the same way in that there are exceptions that can preclude people from owning guns.

However, they are very specific and exist for very good reasons. For example, felons are often (if not always) precluded from owning guns because their criminal histories are a strong marker that they are engaged in malfeasance and thus their post-conviction ownership of a gun is almost inviting new crimes to be committed. Not all felons recidivate but the rate of at which it happens is quite high. On the same note, people that have prior established mental health problems are generally precluded from owning guns as well.

This fact would speak to the fact that public health is indeed an issue when it comes to who should be able to buy or own guns, who should not be able to buy or own guns and why (Volokh, 2015). However, a good many of the people (probably most) that engage in gun violence are doing so while flouting gun laws.

So often, the people that use guns for murders and other illicit activities are doing so in violation of the law either of terms of where they got the gun they used and/or whether they can and own a gun in the first place. There are obviously outliers and exceptions to that but inner city violence if much fuller of the former rather than the latter.

For example, it was recently established that while many of the guns used in Chicago gun violence are bought in states with lower amounts of gun control, the guns in question were nonetheless possessed and/or bought illegally subsequent to their legal sale. This would seem to prove that a focus on straw purchasers should be a focus of future laws.

Indeed, people should be allowed to buy and own guns without heavy restrictions but one of those restrictions should be what they can do with that gun post-purchase and what they must do when selling to someone else (Ernst, 2014). Conclusion In the end, gun.