The Right to Own a Weapon and Bear Arms
December, 14th, 2012 was the day of a great tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the U.S. 20-year-old Adam Lanza, dressed in body armor and armed with two pistols and a rifle opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty children at the age from 5 to 10 years were killed. 18 of them died on the spot and 2 of the children died in hospital. According to media reports, Lanza walked into the classroom and shot his mother, who worked as a school teacher, and all the children who were in the room. Then he killed another five employees of educational institution, including the school principal and psychologist. The motives are unknown. The gunman himself was found dead in the school. It is reported that he had committed suicide.
This is an example of the situation when the weapon was used in the wrong way, i.e. not for the self-defense. According to various studies, 30-40% of the U.S. households have guns. Due to the fact that the U.S. allowed free sale of various types of weapons, many crimes are committed with the firearms. In addition, for decades the major problem for the U.S. is the mass shootings that occur periodically in schools, colleges and other institutions.
The discussion about the right to own and bear weapon as well as the issue whether its sale should be prohibited or not has a long history and it is rather controversial.
The question to be asked is this: should the right to own a weapon and bear arms be enlarged? To show you what I am talking about, let us look closer at this debatable issue on the basis of the U.S.
According to the U.S. legislation, the state citizens can own the long-barreled, short and semi-automatic weapons. They were even allowed to wear machine guns up to 1986, but today this is forbidden by the law in many states. However, this prohibition does not apply to the automatic weapons that were registered before 1986.
The historical experience shows that the majority of the Arms Acts were developed at the time when countries tried not to equip their citizens with the weapon, but rather to limit the availability of guns and pistols.
The debate about the right to own and carry a firearm is one of the hottest and one of the most barren in the modern society. As it is the case with the death penalty, the arguments of the parties are well known, and the probability of finding a common language is almost zero. The main problem that arises in connection with the issue of allowance or the prohibition of the free possession of weapons is how this will affect the overall level of crime. Some people say if each offender possesses the trunk, the level of murders will increase rapidly. However, their opponents mind that criminals have already had guns. If the potential victim possesses the weapons, the perpetrator will think much before the attack. Proponents of arms sometimes argue that the ban to own weapons and bear arms would violate the rights of citizens to defend themselves. They claim that the ban on arms is like to rob a man who was going to be killed by someone. But this is the wrong analogy. Despite the fact that the ban would deprive the people of one of the most effective means of the self-defense, it would also be nice to see if it is really necessary or useful for self-defense. The weapon is one of the means of self-defense, whereas the self-defense is not only mean to achieve security from attack. The right to be safe from attack should also be fundamental and should be guaranteed by the government, the police and etc. Therefore, the right to be secured from attacks is related to the fundamental rights, while the right for self-defense is derived from the right to be secured from attacks.
However, a lot of problems can occur while more people receive weapons, i.e. the people can shoot the person who provoked them; people were shot by mistake or accident. The number of people with guns is so great that any crazy or criminally inclined person, who suddenly has even brief desire to kill, can just get the gun out causing a lot of negative implications to the people’s lives and health.
It also should be noted that the more people own guns, the less effective is the police. The strength of the citizens becomes equal to the strength of the police. It means that the police lose the monopoly on the use of force.
The U.S. President, Barack Obama, also demands to limit the arms traffic. He has already signed the presidential decree to government bodies and law enforcement agencies in order to immediately tighten control on the arms sales. It implies the mandatory testing of the buyers of the small arms, strengthening the assessment of mental state of gun owners and punishment of the weapons transfer to juvenile. In addition, the White House proposes the performance of the special studies of psychological influence exerted on people from the violent video games and movies.
The abovementioned states that the supporters and opponents of weapon have the common goal, i.e. to reduce the number of murders and crimes in the country. However, they propose to achieve this goal through the two different methods: to completely ban the use of the arms to citizens or, conversely, to allow them to defend themselves with weapons, without fear of criminal prosecution, if as a result of their protective action causes the robber’s death or permanent injury.
While offering these methods, the parties make their positions on the basis of the following assumptions: on the one hand, a weapon in the hands of citizens reduces the number of murders, but on the other hand, gun in each house can provide citizens an irresistible temptation as even a law-abiding citizen can try to solve the domestic problems with the help of arms.
Personally I think that the right to own a weapon and bear arms should be tighten. The weapon should not be sold to people who have mental illness or criminal records, as well as to those who are hiding from the law, who are drug addicted and convicted the domestic violence. The guns should not be sold to people under 18 years old, while the handguns should not be acquired by those who are less than 21.
