American Gun Control, Limits and Background Checks Essay

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Implementation of Limits on the Second Amendment

From the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings in which 32 people were killed to the recent October 1, 2015, mass shooting at the Umqua Community College where 9 people died; gun violence within the country has become a contentious issue that is at the forefront of societal awareness. However, despite these highly visible killings, it must still be questioned whether broad and extremely restrictive limitations should be placed on the Second Amendment (Ludwig and Cook 208). As a whole, gun violence within the U.S. has actually gone down with the Census Bureau clearly indicating a reduction of nearly 85 percent in annual gun-related deaths since the 1970s (Parham-Payne 753). Despite this, other countries that have implemented draconian measures in gun control, such as Japan, have only 2 to 3 deaths per year due to gun-related violence. This shows that extensive limitations on gun ownership and sale can have a considerable impact on gun-related deaths within a country and supports the argument that amendments should be made on the Second Amendment.

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Mandatory Background Checks

Implementing mandatory background checks should be an absolute necessity when it comes to gun ownership. You cannot let people that have a history of mental health problems or individuals that have been shown to be prone to violence to own a lethal weapon that they can use to kill people (McLeigh 201). Based on this, background checks should go beyond simply determining a person’s background, they should examine their psychological profile as well as examine people that may have access to the gun around their home. It is through such preventive measures that the government could potentially contain incidents where mentally unstable individuals have access to lethal weaponry.

Gun Shows

Some sellers at gun shows operate under what can only be described as a “secondary market.” This allows private sellers of firearms to transact with other private buyers without having to go through the process of background checks, create a detailed record of the sale or even ask the person for a piece of identification. As a result, this creates a significant gap in the capability of the government to properly limit the sale of firearms (Webster 2). While there are some states such as Washington that now require background checks by sellers at gun shows, many states do not have such limitations. This results in many gun shows simply moving to states that are less restrictive when it comes to the secondary market. The government needs to clamp down on this loophole since it has the potential for criminals or even mentally unstable people to purchase weapons that they can use to harm or even potentially kill innocent bystanders.

Mental Health

If a person wants to own a gun, then they should allow themselves to be subjected to a mental health checkup. Safety for the general public trumps individual privacy, and as seen by the numerous cases of mentally unstable individuals causing mass shootings, preventing such individuals from having access to deadly weaponry is a necessity (LaPierre 23).

Illegal Gun Market

Addressing the issue of the illegal gun market is somewhat contentious since it is hard to determine where specific guns originated from due to present-day processes or removing the serial numbers from weapons. The best the government could potentially do is eliminate caches of illegal gun sales rather than going after individual sellers (Troutman 3).

Works Cited

LaPierre, Wayne. “Should Congress Pass Stronger Gun Laws?.” Congressional Digest 92.3 (2013): 23-25. Print

Ludwig, Jens, and Philip J. Cook. “The Benefits Of Reducing Gun Violence: Evidence From Contingent-Valuation Survey Data.” Journal Of Risk & Uncertainty 22.3 (2001): 207-226. Print

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McLeigh, Jill D. “The New Normal? Addressing Gun Violence In America.” American Journal Of Orthopsychiatry (American Psychological Association) 85.3 (2015): 201-202. Print

Parham-Payne, Wanda. “The Role Of The Media In The Disparate Response To Gun Violence In America.” Journal Of Black Studies 45.8 (2014): 752-768. Print

Troutman, Adewale. “Public Health Has Role To Play In Preventing Gun Violence In America.” Nation’s Health 43.1 (2013): 3. Print

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IvyPanda. (2020) 'American Gun Control, Limits and Background Checks'. 4 July.

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IvyPanda. 2020. "American Gun Control, Limits and Background Checks." July 4, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-gun-control-limits-and-background-checks/.

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