NRA AND GUN CONTROL POLITICS

NRA And Gun Control Politics

NRA And Gun Control Politics

Introduction

Drugs, guns and crime all rank high on the public agenda of social concerns. About 60 percent of all homicides and suicides are committed with guns as are a third of all robberies, and a fifth of aggrevated assaults. In all, guns are used in about 800 000 violent crimes each year. Further, roughly 35 000 Americans are killed each year as a consequence of the homicidal, accidental and suicidal use of guns. Over the last two decades, many “gun control” laws have been eliminated or made less restrictive at the federal, state, and local levels. Numbers of privately-owned guns and Right-to-Carry states have risen to all-time highs. Every step of the way, “gun control” groups have predicted violent crime would increase. Instead, the nation's violent crime rate has been declining since 1991, and in 2008 fell to a 35-year low. In the same period, the nation's murder rate fell to a 43-year low. (Kates,1991)

Discussion

While the connection between gun availability and crime is certainly not lost on members of the community in general, it is interesting to note that the prescriptive policy solutions vary drastically contingent on the particular lobby group proffering answers. We certainly do not contend any deeper knowledge or understanding of these complicated issues, at a sociological level, than the authors of the copious and diverse existing literature, but it may be instructive to analyze the public policy implications of such ideas as gun control and legalizing drugs through the economist's looking glass.( Mauser and Holmes, 1992)

Most of us have an opinion, and freely offer it at dinner parties, on the merits or problems with such policy prescriptions as legalizing drugs, or greater gun controls. What was puzzling to us is the realization that we both support the legalization of drugs and making the ownership of guns far less accessible, indeed illegal. The rationale for this seemingly incongruous response comes from a simple application of basic economic analysis. (Kates,1991)

Consider the market for guns. Casual empiricism reveals the demand for guns can be divided into three categories: hunting or sporting related demand, personal safety, and criminal activity. Presumably in denouncing the infringement of civil liberties by the state in any attempts at stringent gun control, the anti gun regulation advocates speak on behalf of the first two demand categories and not the third. The right to bear arms has oft been cited as a fundamental, inalienable right of each and every law abiding citizen.(Brams and Kilgour, 1988)

Curiously, the antecedents of the Second Amendment rest on the precepts of controlling Federalism; in particular, enabling balancing powers between the federal government and the states. In fact, to allow citizens a constitutionally protected right to serve in militias ensured the existence of state militias, and as such, a military and political balance between state and federal power.( Mauser and Holmes, 1992)

The National Rifle Association is asking the Supreme Court to strike down strict gun control laws in the Chicago area, setting the stage ...