Preview

The Second Amendment Under Fire Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
638 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Second Amendment Under Fire Analysis
Precis Work Cited

Cornell, Saul. "It Is Unproven That the Founding Fathers Intended to Protect the Individual 's Right to Bear Arms." Is Gun Ownership a Right? Ed. Kelly Doyle. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. At Issue. Rpt. from "The Second Amendment Under Fire: The Uses of History and the Politics of Gun Control." http://historymatters.gmu.edu. 2001. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
In this article, Saul Cornell associate professor in the Department of History at Ohio State University, claims that the Second Amendment was originally understood to protect an individual’s right to gun ownership remains historically unproven and politically contested. Saul develops his thesis by introducing the reader to two different
…show more content…
Henigan develops her thesis by citing many case studies on individuals that claim that every person has a right to bear arm because of homegrown political violence in America. But also, opposing to what some individuals say, the NRA suggested that "the Second Amendment ... is literally a loaded gun in the hands of the people held to the heads of government." Henigan purpose for this document was in order to question if there was any constitutional justification for …show more content…
Some of the shootings were suicides and others were unintentional. Sherfinski develops this thesis by stating that the Congress that has shown little interest in gun control after President Obama 's failed push last year for expanded background checks and bans on some semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity ammunition. This document was introduced in order to introduce the audience on the movement the Moms Demand Gun Sense in American are taking to make sure Congress takes action to ensure the gun control law is better fixed.

Children 's Defense Fund. "Gun Crimes Cause Serious Harm to Children." Guns and Crime. Ed. Christine Watkins. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Protect Children, Not Guns 2010." 20 Aug. 2010: 1-18. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
In this article, the editor claims that guns cause harm to children. The editor develops this thesis by stating factual information on the fact that there are too many guns and not enough gun control. The editor then supplies examples on deaths of many children from accidental or suicidal gunfire’s. The editors purpose of this document was to promote the audience to reject gun control by slowly stopping the glamorization of guns and violence in movies, television, music and on the internet and also to protest

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    With all the mass shootings recently, I feel that the public has—in a way—become numb to the next big incident. Until it comes to children, does it come back into the news. Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) said in 2012, “I agree, now is not the time to talk about gun laws. The time for that conversation was long before all those kids in Connecticut died today” (13). Though we have not talked much about gun control and its repercussions, Beck’s book creates a bigger picture of what we have discussed so far and how far…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    S. V Cruikshank Case

    • 3244 Words
    • 13 Pages

    The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights was an elaborate document for its time. This document was the beginning of a revolutionary country, one that was formed from brave men and women who gave their lives so that we the people of the United States may live in a free nation today. The framers of the United States Constitution were all very intelligent men and knew what it would take to create and keep a strong free society. That is why the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution gives the people of the United States the right to bear arms. In this paper I am going to discuss and validate the American people’s right to maintain firearms for their own personal protection.…

    • 3244 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Second Amendment has been one of the most controversial topics that America faces today. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" (LII). Under the constitution, you are able to own guns but there has been many restrictions and Acts that control your rights to a minimum. Gun rights reforms are how the Acts and certain limitations are made. These reforms are made to help lower the dangers of these weapons and allow for higher protection. The Second Amendment and Gun Rights should be adapted to today’s society along with certain past events to allow citizens to bear arms publicly. In multiple scenarios, these past event may have been avoided if gun control was open to more eligible citizens.…

    • 881 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The history of firearms has changed dramatically since the late 1700’s. A rifle is no longer defined as a single shot, muzzle loading musket. Should modernized, high caliber, automatic rifles and handguns be protected by an amendment written nearly 250 years ago? Should the second amendment be abolished altogether? Or regulated, perhaps? If so, to what extent? All these questions are what trigger extensive debates in Washington D.C. regarding what the founding fathers intended the amendment to be.…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In conclusion, Warren E. Burger makes a convincing argument towards gun control for the second amendment strongly relying on history and current day violence statistics. He argues the right to bear arms is no longer a tool of survival for Americans, and the base to which we got this right was formed on state militias. While it is the right of americans to protect their homes and hunt, they can do so through more regulated laws in order to instill the "domestic tranquility" promised in the…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ever since the ratification of the 2nd amendment to the Constitution, one of ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, people of the United States have right to keep and bear arm in order to protect themselves. However, the extent of firearms’ usage is not limited to just people protecting each other and themselves. Accompanied with the right to keep and bear arm is the thread of gun violence. Mass shooting incidents, apparent evidences of gun violence have been seen all over the country. Gun violence has been causing fear for the people and endless loss for the country overall.…

    • 1955 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second amendment, the right to bear arms, was adopted on December 15, 1791. In that day in age, guns were not as powerful as they have become, and many who created the Bill of Rights could not have predicted the future. If the constitution, or Bill of Rights, had been written with the knowledge of today’s weapons the Second Amendment would be different. Now in the 21st century there have been many cases where the Second Amendment has been brought into question. These cases have brought questions that deal with the amendment having been written for civilians, but also the worry of the advancements that have been made in weaponry since the time the Second Amendment was written.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Good Paper

    • 3992 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Rarely is the Second Amendment discussed in Constitutional Law textbooks, and other than for a slew of Internet resources (see below), many people simply ignore it or shy away from the intense ideological debates. In this lecture, we cover both Second Amendment jurisprudence and Gun Control controversies.…

    • 3992 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Right To Bear Arms

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gun control and the Second Amendment have been in the new and at the forefront of American conversation in the last several months. The largest topic in this discussion is, what does the Second Amendment say, what does it mean, and does it still apply today. The main viewpoints of this argument really come from each group’s interpretation of the verbiage that makes up the Second Amendment. One group takes a universal human right to bear arms approach, while another group takes an approach that makes the Second Amendment a propositional statement.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gun Control Downfall

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It is to be believed that America’s public safety is being threatened by guns. There have been numerous events leading up to this accusation. Today, there is a rising debate whether gun control should be legalized or forbidden. There stand two sides of this dispute, one is for bearing arms and the other is against it. One could infer that one side remains superior over the other. In America majority vote rules, therefore the gun control laws remain not into effect due to the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to possess and bear arms shall not be infringed” (ProCon.org, np).…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Gun Control

    • 1842 Words
    • 8 Pages

    * Bowman, Jeffrey; Newton, Heather. Points of View: Gun Control. 2011, p2-2. 1p. Reading Level (Lexile):1170…

    • 1842 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anti Gun Culture

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages

    There was a profound shift in the character of firearms regulation occurred in response to widespread fears that handgun and other weapons that posed a serious threat to social stability in the early 19th century. In the early 19th century the gun control also changes in the election of Thomas Jefferson when the power shits towards Anti-federalist’s. The Anti-federalist and the Jeffersonian heirs came to interpret the Second Amendment with an evolving theory of state’s right. Throughout the Jeffersonian era one of the Jefferson’s Anti- federalist Charles Austin is murdered by federalist Thomas Selfridge. (Cornell, p. 113). The murder of this Anti-federalist brought many questions and thoughts of the Second Amendment, which made the conclusion of murder and self-defense very tough to the judge because of the situation. During this time there was also a lot of violence going on because of the social unrest that was cause after the War of 1812. Many citizens live with fear and as a result, the first gun control movement was established because of the violence that was occurring in the nation. The gun control movement helped people recognize and reflect the right of self-defense. The first gun control movement that was passed was in Kentucky, this curbed the practice of carrying concealed weapon in in 1813, and in the same year Louisiana also passed an act banning concealed weapons (Cornell, p. 138). Many citizens were not satisfied that the government was contravening with their rights and many of these citizens in several states began to make their own individual constitution in order to support their citizens’ rights to bear arms (Cornell, p.141). The first gun control movement in Kentucky advocated the first real court challenge to the new gun control laws. The individual rights explanation of the Second Amendment first appears in Bliss…

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Recently, public debates have been less focused on the safety and wellbeing of our youth and kids. Instead, the debate has been heavily focused on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the proper use of guns by the adults. The Second Amendment reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. -Hubert Humphrey, 1960 My background is probably atypical for a somewhat high-profile supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. I am black and grew up in Manhattan's East Harlem, far removed from the great American gun culture of rural, white America. Although my voting patterns have become somewhat more conservative in recent years, I remain in my heart of hearts a 1960s Humphrey Democrat concerned with the plight of those most vulnerable in American society-minorities, the poor, the elderly, and single women-groups whose day-to-day realities are often overlooked in our public policy debates, people whose lives too often go unnoticed by our intellectually timid chattering classes. This is happening in the public debate over the right to bear arms. For the nation's elites, the Second Amendment has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bill of Rights, constantly attacked by editorial writers, police chiefs seeking scapegoats, demagoging politicians, and most recently even by Rosie O'Donnell, no less. It is threatened by opportunistic legislative efforts, even when sponsors acknowledge their proposed legislation would have little impact on crime and violence. Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gun Control

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This essay has one purpose. I intend to show my reader that as important as it is to keep guns out of the wrong hands, it’s impossible to be 100% sure as to who’s hands are the wrong hands. In all of my 35 years on earth I have not killed anyone with a firearm. I don’t believe that means that I should own one either. Using me as an example is the best way to display my unbiased opinion. As Americans once certain criteria has been met, the 2nd amendment of the constitution protects our right to bear arms. Americans take this right very seriously and exercise it religiously. According to the more than 10,000 people killed in America by firearms yearly, many obviously don’t practice this right responsibly.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays