Civil Liberties
The NRA
&
The Brady Bill
By: Yael Nelson
Sandeep Sharma
&
Monica Sintingo
Political Science/Discussion Group
Christopher Malone
Section 1
April 9,1998
The Constitution of the United States was designed so that we could have law and order, a set of rules that the country should live by. The Constitution was signed in 1787 by James McHenry, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just to name a few. Contrary to popular belief the Constitution was not perfect. There were twenty-seven Amendments made and the first ten are called The Bill Of Rights.
The Bill Of Rights was adopted in 1791. According to the second amendment "A well organized militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". A well organized militia being necessary to the security of a free state is like the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air force and Marines. That doesn't mean that you have to be in one of the armed forces to carry a gun. That brings me to the second part of that amendment, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That means that all Americans have the right to keep and carry a gun under the protection of the Constitution. There are some exceptions like people who have been convicted of a crime have a totally different set of rules.
The right to bear arms could be considered on of our Civil Liberties (the rights that are guaranteed to the individuals). Being able to carry a gun is a wonderful freedom. Some people say that allowing Americans to carry a gun is like giving them permission to kill someone. So they want to keep guns away from everyone except the Military. Guns are not the problem, it's the people who have the guns and feel like they can kill other people that are the problem.
The Brady Bill which was enacted in 1993, is also known as the Handgun Violence Protection Act. It requires state and local governments to run background checks on individuals who want to purchase a handgun from federally licensed handgun dealers. It also requires that a five-day waiting period be imposed before an individual can purchase a gun.
In 1981, a man named Hinkler attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, who was president at the time. President Reagan was shot, as well as his Press Secretary, James Brady. President Reagan recovered successfully,but Brady, unfortunately, was not so lucky. James Brady was permanently disabled as a result of his injury. This incident made gun-control an even bigger topic. It brought into question the effectiveness of the procedures used when purchasing a gun. For fear that just anyone could purchase a gun, the Brady Bill was introduced into Congress in hopes of creating a better quality of life for all people in the United States.
The Brady Bill was passed, but not without tremendous debate. The bill has been described as unconstitutional. Opponents of gun-control have argued that it violates the right of the second amendment. Whether the bill is unconstitutional or not, however, depends on how you interpret the second amendment. Two very different interpretations of what the founding fathers meant by this have been made. The first interpretation emphasizes the militia aspect of the amendment. It states that the second amendment protects the right of the State to maintain collective militias. Advocates for gun-control argue that no individual should be able to have access to owning or using a gun. The other interpretation, backed by opponents of gun-control, states that the second amendment protects the right of individuals to own and use guns. Because gun-control and the Brady Bill interfere with the latter interpretation of rights, the question of whether or not the bill is constitutional arose.
Utah is one of the states that has successfully adopted the Brady Bill into its law. It provides state guidelines that determines the denial of a handgun purchase. The guidelines are listed below. Anyone can be denied a purchase if:
1. They have been convicted of a felony.
2. Is an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
3. Is drug dependent.
4. Has been committed to a mental institution.
5. Is subject to a court order due to harassment, stalking, etc..
6. Cannot prove residency without proper identification.
These are only some of the disqualifiers mentioned in Utah state law. The legislation, however, has been proven to be very effective in that state. It has been called a positive and useful tool for law enforcement by many.
The debate over gun-control has brought to our attention many valid arguments. Advocates for gun-control argue that background checks will decrease the number of guns sold to individuals with the intent of using the gun in a malicious manner. They also argue that imposing a five-day waiting period to purchase a gun will give disturbed people time to "cool down" and rethink their planned course of action. This waiting period is an attempt to let people realize the mistake that they would be making.
Opponents of gun-control have argued that a five-day waiting period will only delay a criminal action. They argue that anyone with malicious intent will wait five days, purchase the gun, and then commit the intended crime. Another argument is that gun-control allows for more deaths. An example given was that of Bonnie Elmasri. Bonnie wanted to purchase a handgun in order to protect herself from her abusive husband. There was a two-day waiting period to purchase a gun, so Bonnie had to wait. The next day Bonnie and her two sons were killed by her husband. A third argument is that owning and using a gun is a form of protection. As in Bonnie Elmasri's case, if she had been able to purchase a gun to help protect herself, she and her two sons would be alive today.
Gun-control will always be a topic of great debate. The intentions of gun-control are clearly to protect and save the lives of the people. Depending on the interpretation of the second amendment,the Brady Bill can be seen as both constitutional and unconstitutional, but only to a certain degree. Although people may have the right to bear arms, they also have the right to live. Not only do we have to take into consideration the fact that guns can protect you, we must also consider the fact that many people lose their lives because the wrong person had access to a gun. We should also keep in mind that even if a person has a gun, it is not an effective deterrent of crime. If you are not convinced of this, think about all of the shoot-outs and casualties that occur because both sides had guns for protection.
Because of that his wife and others began to lobby for a law to be made against semi-automatic weapons. After a while the Brady Bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
There are many organizations or Interest Groups (An Interest Group is an organized group of individuals that seek to change public policy) that are for banning weapons. There are also many Interest Groups that are Anti-banning (semi-automatic) weapons. One Interest Group in particular that is against banning weapons is the NRA(National Rifle Association). One Interest Group that is Pro banning weapons is Handgun Control INC.
National Rifle Association
America: A land of opportunity. Often American people with similar interests organize formal groups. Many social groups have little contact with govt, but occasionally they find themselves backing or opposing govt policies. When an organized body of individuals share some political goals and try to influence public policy decisions those individuals are called an Interest Group. Many interest groups regularly spend money and time to influence govt policy. Among them are the International Electrical Workers Union(IEWU), National Educational Association(NEA), The National Association of Manufacture and of course the NRA(National Rifle Association).
The NRA is mainly based on the second amendment. Millions of Americans representing a diverse contrast of age, sex, race, and religion. Americans have joined the NRA from every economic background, form every state of the union, and from every political affiliation. What the members share with every other member is the appreciation of the shooting sports, beliefs in our Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms, and most of all, a commitment to safety, responsibility, and freedom.
The purpose of the NRA was in William Church's words "To turn the guard into sharp shooters". Fifteen men crowded into the offices of the army and navy journal at 192 Broadway in lower Manhattan and discussed the formation of the NRA. The organizers of the meeting were William Church and George Wingate. These fifteen men are soldiers of the America who could not find work after the Civil War. Church felt that the NRA was merely doing what the govt itself should have been doing. This is at the time when the NRA was incorporated in 1871 to provide firearm training and encourage interest in the shooting sports.
National Rifle Association: An American family committed to safety, responsibility, and freedom. The NRA has more than three and a quarter million dues paying members. The Harris and Gail up organization, The Times Mirror Company and Torrance Group did an exit poll on election day, 1994. According to them, they discovered the voting block between twenty-three and twenty-seven Americans. As many as twenty-seven million Americans told pollsters they were members of the NRA. In this family are store owners like Charmaine Klaus of Michigan. When an armed robber attacked her and her employer in her store Charmaine grabbed her gun to fight back. She wounded her attacker which led to his arrest. There were many volunteers to lead a movement, a movement to guarantee that the right to keep and bear arms would not be infringed. A movement to safeguard the preliminary civil rights; the right to protect your life without which other civil rights are meaningless.
All rights are protected by The Bill Of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms is possessed by each American individually. The Supreme Court has ruled in a few cases addressing the second amendment and related issues. The court recognized that the right to bear arms is an individual right. In the US versus Cruikshank(1876) and the US versus Verdugo-Uguidez(1990). Lower federal court decisions have been divided on whether the right to bear arms is individual or "collective", through these findings against the individual rights are contrary to the Verdugo-Urquidez decision, in which the court observed that the court observed that the term "the people" has the same meaning in the second amendment as it does in the first, fourth, ninth and tenth. These decisions support the generations-old understanding of the right to bear arms as one of our most individual liberties.
The NRA family was involved in some ten thousand elections at the federal, state, and local levels in 1994. The NRA was successful by 82%. Almost one year ago to the day, a prominent democrat made it plain to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He said, "The NRA is the reason that Republicans controlled the house". What's the name of that prominent democrat? Bill Clinton. But the NRA backed forty-five incumbent Democrat Congressmen because they voted against their President and against The Clinton Gun Ban. The NRA institute of legislative action which is the legislative and political arm of the NRA. It is twenty years old and 1995 is its most successful year because the NRA not only defended the second amendment right, but also advanced its rights. Twenty-two states have adopted the right to carry in the last decade, eleven in the last two years. States with the right to carry laws have lower overall violent crime rates compared to states without right to carry laws.
Gun laws are the big failures in the US. In 1976 Washington DC enacted a virtual ban on handguns. By 1991 DC's homicide rate had tripled. California imposed a fifteen day waiting period on handgun sales in 1975, and banned assault weapons in 1989. Yet its homicide and violent crime rate is 43% and 50% higher. The main reason is that the govt can't control the criminals who get assault weapons form an illegal source.
There are also some Anti Gun organizations going on like Handgun Control INC, whose president is James Guest and it originated in 1974. This group which lobbied for govt restriction on the right to keep and bear arms through support for restriction on the manufacture, sale, transfer, and civilian possession of handguns. Coalition of Stop Gun Violence whose president is Michael K. Beard and it originated in 1975. These are the anti gun organizations who operate to promote the passage of anti gun laws and ordinances.
Nowadays the NRA sends a three part message to America:
Safety Responsibility Freedom
I believe it's a pretty easy message to understand. It doesn't take any time to decipher. The NRA has been in the training and educating business for more than a century. I believe for more than 125 years, the NRA offered world class training. Today, there's a difference, the NRA is doing it more and better. So at last the NRA has diligently pursued the safety of the citizens by protecting their freedom. In ten states just this year, the NRA ensured that honest citizens have the freedom to apply for a permit to carry a firearm for personal protection. We call it now Right to Carry. People believe that without this freedom, there can be no safety. America has seen the NRA transform our fundamental rights of self protection into fair, effective laws that assure the right to carry is granted to responsible, certifiably law abiding citizens.
Handgun Control INC: www.handguncontrol.org
National Rifle Association: www.nra.org
The Constitution: www.nara.gov
The Brady Bill: www.bradybill.com
The Brady Bill in Utah:
www.ps-ex.state.ut.us/lets/bcibrady.htm
The Brady Bill Song: www.netsicle.com/~lcoble/2ndamend/brady-bi.txt