Gun control is a sensitive issue in the United States. From the National Rifle Association to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, many groups have drastically different opinions on who should be able to purchase guns and how they should be permitted to carry and use them. It is perplexing to many Canadians how prevalent handguns are in the United States.
Every year, more than 100 000 people in America are shot. 8 children or teens die every day as a result of gun violence. However, the reality is that the only realistic approach for American gun control advocates is to focus on who gets to own them, what type of handguns and ammunition are permitted and where handguns can be carried, rather than trying to ban them outright.
The issue of gun control has recently come to the forefront of national debate with the attempted assassination of Democratic politician Gabrielle Giffords. On January 8th, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on a Tuscon parking lot, killing six people and wounding fourteen others including Giffords. The victims included a 9-year-old girl and a District Court Judge, John Roll.
Many Canadians have difficulty understanding the resistance of so many Americans to any form of gun control. Why is gun ownership so prevalent in the United States and why is the resistance to any form of gun control so strong in so many quarters?
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. Many Americans believe that this right is integral to the preservation of democracy.
Ron Paul, a politician who has twice run for president and is currently the Republican representative for Texas’ 14th district in the U.S. House of Representatives explains this widely held belief. He says that, “… gun control often serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right”.
In contrast to Ron Paul’s pro-gun message, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) stated in a press release after the tragedy that the shooting “was both predictable and inevitable.” They went on to assert that “insurrectionist rhetoric—which posits that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to take violent action when they believe that our government has become tyrannical” has become increasingly “mainstream” in the United States.
The “insurrectionist rhetoric” that is mentioned by the CSGV may partially explain Jared Lee Loughner’s reprehensible actions: did he think he was protecting himself from the “corruption” of Gabrielle Giffords? Loughner has a history of disturbed behaviour and many experts think he may suffer from a mental illness. Could he have deluded himself into justifying the use of firearms to protect his “freedom”?
Strict gun controls like those we have in Canada are simply out of the question in United Sates, where the use and possession of guns is deeply ingrained within American culture. Because of this, pro-control groups and lawmakers focus on controlling who can own firearms, what kinds of firearms are legal and where they can be brought or concealed.
Many politicians and journalists expressed shock that, given his mental instability, Loughner was even able to purchase a firearm. Nicholas Kristof, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote on his Facebook page that, “Everybody takes different lessons from the Arizona shooting tragedy, but I keep coming back in my head to this: The suspect was considered too mentally unstable to attend college, but not to buy a semiautomatic Glock handgun.”
Loughner has also attempted to join the U.S. Army but was rejected due to his use of marijuana. Background checks, made a condition of a firearm purchase by the Brady Act in 1993, are run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by the state itself if additional gun control laws are present.
However, background checks are not mandatory when guns are traded at gun shows, and do not include the investigation of complaints by campus police or private security firms. The Brady Act also states that the purchaser cannot be “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance”. However, the Army’s rejection of Loughner due to his use of marijuana, a controlled substance, was not found during any background checks.
A second focus of gun control advocates in the wake of the Arizona shootings concerns the type of weapons and ammunition that may legally be purchased. Loughner had a magazine with 33 rounds of ammunition in it. Democratic Representative for New York Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed in a mass shooting in 1993, plans to ban the high-capacity ammunition magazines that were used by Loughner in his attack. High-capacity ammunition magazines and assault weapons were banned in 1994, but the ban was allowed to expire in 2004. Shockingly, in anticipation of a possible re-instatement of the ban, sales of high-capacity magazines sharply increased in Arizona following the shooting.
The final focus of American gun control advocates concerns the locations where guns can be carried. Due to Loughner’s possible political motivations, another Representative for New York, Peter King, has proposed legislation to make it illegal to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of government officials.
Firearms are so deeply entrenched in American political culture that there is little realistic chance that handguns will ever be banned. It is difficult for many Canadians to comprehend that even measures aimed at controlling the “who, what and where” of gun ownership are controversial. The gun debate in America can only be understood in the context of a society that prides itself on individualism and considers it essential to democracy that each citizen be able to bear arms.
