you need to complete at least two responses (the “Final Posts”) of at least 200 words each to classmates
q1
In my opinion, the right to keep and bear arms is a vital element of the liberal order that our Founders handed down to us. They understood that those who hold political power will almost always strive to reduce the freedom of those they rule and that many of the ruled will always be tempted to trade their liberty for empty promises of security. The causes of these political phenomena are sown in man’s nature.
The U.S. Constitution, including the Second Amendment, is a device designed to frustrate the domineering tendencies of the politically ambitious. The Second Amendment also plays an important role in fostering the kind of civic virtue that resists the cowardly urge to trade liberty for an illusion of safety. Armed citizens take responsibility for their own security, thereby exhibiting and cultivating the self-reliance and vigorous spirit that are ultimately indispensable for genuine self-government.
While much has changed since the 18th century, for better and for worse, human nature has not changed. The problem is not owning a gun, but the main issue is on the person who is holding it, is he well formed? Does he know the laws about owning a gun and how to use it? The fundamental principles of our regime and the understanding of human nature on which those principles are based can still be grasped today. Once grasped, they can be defended. Such a defense, however, demands an appreciation of the right to arms that goes beyond the legalistic and narrowly political considerations that drive contemporary gun-control debates.
In some countries, guns are authorized because those countries are countries of war, so authorizing the use of guns is a way to allow people or citizens to be vigilant in case of attack, everybody is ready to defend himself until army takes control of the situation.
q2:
I am a person who comes from the country that doesn’t allow people to carry a gun. Even now I’m already an US citizen but I still keep my opinion about guns in US. I think we should have more rules about guns ownership to make everything’s safer.
What I means is gun-rights advocates and other extremists sometimes behave as if every attempt to create sane and logical regulations on guns is a fruitless, fascist assault on their freedom, but a quick look at the facts shows a chilling relationship between homicides and gun ownership that shouldn’t be so carelessly ignored. The more people that own guns in a region, the more firearm deaths that area will see.
According to a study on this very topic published in the American Journal of Public Health, “For each percentage point increase in gun ownership, the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%,” (Siegel 2013). This study, which looked at data from three decades for every U.S. state, strongly suggests that the more people that own guns, the more lives will be taken by guns.
Other countries that have implemented stricter gun ownership regulations than the U.S. have lower homicide rates, and this is no coincidence. Looking at the example that Japan, with its strict firearm control laws and its almost nonexistent national homicide rate, sets, it’s clear that fewer guns, not more guns, is the obvious answer (“Japan—Gun Facts, Figures and the Law”).
The Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), a case often cited by gun-rights advocates, that private citizens may own weapons for self-defense but are subject to restrictions on those weapons. Therefore, it’s not your right to build and own a nuclear or assault weapon, nor is toting a pistol in your pocket an unfettered natural right. Your right to bear arms is maintained by federal law, but it’s not as loose as you might think.
Minors can’t buy alcohol and we can’t purchase cold medicine right off the shelf because our society aims to protect citizens from drug abuse and trafficking. In the same way, we need to regulate guns even further in order to protect Americans from gun violence. It’s inaccurate to claim that unrestricted gun access and ownership is or ever was a constitutional right.
The American people should not have to live in fear every time they enter a public place, send their children to school, or sleep in their own beds at night, and this is ultimately the reason we need gun control. The time has come to let logic win and to bring common sense and compassion to the dialogue on guns.