Gun Rights Trump Gun Control: Mass Shootings Are A Societal Issue, Not An Inanimate Object Issue Commentary
Gun Rights Trump Gun Control: Mass Shootings Are A Societal Issue, Not An Inanimate Object Issue
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JURIST Guest Columnist Jeremy Schmidt of Valparaiso University School of Law, Class of 2017, discusses gun rights in the United States…President Obama, without respect to those mourning lost loved ones, has gotten into a habit of always attacking law-abiding citizens’ rights to bear arms whenever there is a highly publicized violent attack in the United States of America. President Obama always uses these highly publicized attacks to call for more gun control because he believes it will stop these attacks. However, there are no statistics or facts to support this claim by President Obama. In reality, the areas with the strictest gun control laws in the United States have the highest violent crime rates. In contrast, those places in the United States with the least gun control laws are the safest places to live.

Another problem with President Obama’s call for gun control is he never adds any suggestions or ideas on what type of gun control should be created or how far it should go. The citizens are left to speculate on what type of gun control President Obama wants. Does he want to create a weapons registry, does he want more gun free zones or does he want to attempt an all-out weapon ban, such as the ones Australia and Great Britain have enacted? This type of speculation is not helpful to any type of potential conversation that could lead to gun control the majority of the United States could agree on.

Do not take the title of this article to mean no gun control is the solution. There is a type of gun control that will work and at the same time it will not violate a law-abiding citizens’ right to bear arms. Common-sense gun control is gun control the majority of United States citizens agree on. Common-sense gun control can include a few different things, such as universal background checks on all firearm purchases, mandatory training for those who have concealed carry licenses and getting rid of gun-free zones for law-abiding citizens. Those are just a couple of ideas most citizens could agree on. Making suggestions like these adds value to the conversation about Second Amendment rights and gun control. Adding value to any conversation is something President Obama and the rest of the politicians have tremendously failed at in the recent years.

Like most of the systems in the United States, the gun control system is a broken system with a lot of loopholes, inefficiency and backlog. The current gun control system and laws need to be discarded so a better system can be created by the people. A new system created by the people will make the majority of citizens believe in it because there will be input from everyone. There has to be input from all citizens of the United States to truly create an effective gun control system which does not intrude on a law-abiding citizens’ rights.

Another problem President Obama and the rest of the politicians fail to address in their gun control solutions is the mental health problem. It is always widely publicized after a mass shooting if the shooter had a mental illness or not. This is almost a more important issue than gun control because mental health can affect anyone, whereas gun control only affects those who own or want to own a firearm. Mental health issues can affect anyone such as military personnel, doctors, CPAs, attorneys and even high school kids. Mental health issues are an epidemic in the United States, and yet you never hear President Obama or any of the Democrats blame the shooter’s mental health. They instead blame the shooting on a firearm, which is an inanimate object. A gun will never go off by itself. A gun will only go off with some sort of human interaction with it.

If society wants to see a decrease in mass shootings, then society needs to change the conversation from blaming guns to finding a solution to help those with mental health issues. However, society has to have another conversation as well because not every mass shooting can be blamed on mental health problems. Society needs to have a conversation about how kids are being raised. Unfortunately, a lot of kids are growing up without parents or with parents who do not care to teach their kids respect, responsibility and accountability. Part of gun ownership and using a gun involves all three principles which many kids are growing up without knowing. A person should know respect, responsibility and accountability when owning and using a firearm. Since many kids today do not know these values, they believe it is acceptable to go out and kill innocent people. If kids were taught values, ethics and morals today, there would be a decrease in mass shootings. Unfortunately, the gun control laws being pushed by President Obama and the Democrats do nothing to solve any of these problems. They only infringe on the law-abiding citizens’ rights to bear arms.

The United States would not exist today without firearms. The founding fathers of the United States ingrained the right to bear arms in the Constitution. It can be argued this is the most important right because without it, eventually citizens will see their other rights disappear. The right to bear arms should and will always trump gun control. However, the United States has a major problem with mass shootings taking place almost every month of the year. The citizens of the United States need to wake up and realize they can no longer rely on the President and the rest of the politicians to solve anything. Because of that, the citizens of the United States need to come together and change the conversation from blaming inanimate objects to a topic that will help find a solution to stop these mass shootings. There are many different conversations society needs to have because the world is really messed up. However, not everything can be solved in a day. So three possible starting points are common-sense gun control, finding help for those with mental health issues and teaching kids respect, responsibility and accountability.

Jeremy Schmidt is a second year law student at Valparaiso University School of Law. He is a member of the Valpo Law Blog and the Business Law Society.

Suggested citation: Jeremy Schmidt, Gun Rights Trump Gun Control: Mass Shootings are a Societal Issue, Not an Inanimate Object Issue, JURIST – Student Commentary, Dec. 31, 2015, http://jurist.org/student/2015/12/Jeremy-Schmidt-gun-right.php.


This article was prepared for publication by Alix Ware, an assistant Editor for JURIST Commentary. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org

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