Gun Control and the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment and Gun Control

The Second Amendment has always been and will continue to be a hot topic for some Americans. Certain Americans would have you believe that taking away your rights to bear arms and protect your family should be the ultimate solution but it is not according to Georgia Senator John Isakson. Senator Isakson believes that the country should hold Criminals who choose to abuse gun laws and infringe upon our rights, as Americans, as opposed to the need to regulate the gun laws. The senator goes ahead to affirm his political position on the gun matter by saying, “I will continue to oppose any attempts to crack down on law-abiding firearms owners, rather than punishing criminals who use guns.” (Isakson, 2018)

Differing Views on Gun Control

The senator believes that the American gun laws are perfectly within place and do not need any further amendments. Nonetheless, the state needs to check on the people issuing and using the guns. On the other hand, Wolf & Rosen (2014) in the journal article contends that it is wrong for any person to associate mental illness with violence. In the journal, the scholars observe that gun control is necessary in order to avoid accusing or associating mental illness to the gun violence that the country has witnessed in the past decades. This assertion expresses a dissenting opinion on the gun policies that the state moves to coin in order to limit gun access to people with mental illness. According to Wolf & Rosen (2014), the policies make a strong belief that people with mental illness are dangerous and should be avoided. Moreover, the people with mental illness are a smaller percentage as opposed to the mass shooting that the country has encountered in the past days. In this manner, the problem is not necessarily mental health; the larger perspective lies on the gun control measures the state would make.

Control of Criminals and Mental Illness

The senator also asserts that the country should however make strong policies to control the criminals and not the use of guns. In retrospect, his opinion criminalizes people with mental illness and portrays them as the violent people to be controlled and perhaps limited from handling guns. In this respect, he is opposed to the scholars who believe that mental illness has nothing or a very small percentage to do with gun violence undergoing in the country. Collectively, they hold similar opinion that advocates for criminal check and control rather than holding control of the guns including the legal registered guns.

A Holistic Approach to Gun Violence

Actually, there is a clear difference between mental illness and gun violence. In this respect, the country needs to find advanced ways to curtail gun violence by tracking down criminals and putting them to record. As Wolf & Rosen (2014) posit, the majority of people with criminal records have historical health record of drug abuse or potential violence record. It is thus necessary to define policies that offer assistance to the criminals and the people with mental illness in order to control gun violence.

Varying Perspectives on Gun Control

Contrary, some of the senators believe that gun violence is directly related to mental illness and lack of adequate policies to control guns. In this view, Senator Bill Nelson, is one such senator who believes that gun control will not infringe on the Americans rights but will reduce wrong gun usage.

Conclusion

In summary, controlling guns will infringe on the rights of the Americans because not everyone who possesses the guns turn violent. It is therefore appropriate to handle the gun users and criminals who take advantage of the current gun policies.

References

Isakson, J. (2018). Second amendment. Retrieved December 2, 2018, from US Senate : https://www.isakson.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/issue-statements?p=second-amendment

Wolf, C. R., & Rosen, J. A. (2014). Missing the mark: Gun control is not the cure for what ails the US mental health system. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 104, 851.