The Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy has left America saddened and angry at the same time, after 30 people (mostly children) were killed. The incident has sparked never-ending debates across the country and many of them involve gun regulation.
Zack Beauchamp over at ThinkingProgress.org gave us an interesting list to discuss. Take a look at the “5 Lies The Gun Lobby Tells You”.
- MYTH 1 – More guns don’t lead to more murders. There was a survey done by researchers over at the credible Harvard University School of Public health, what found very heavy support for the idea, that even when we control guns for poverty levels, more people die from gun homicides in areas with higher rates of gun ownership. So, even though gun advocates say this doesn’t happen, there are countries like Israel and Switzrland who do not disprove the point.
- MYTH 2– The Second Amendment prohibits strict gun control. The Supreme Court did rule in the D.C. v. Heller case that banning handgun ownership was unconstitutional. That is correct. This gave state and federal governments lots of flexibility in regulating gun ownership as they choose. Just recently the U.S. Second Court of Appeals put in a ruling that upholds a New York regulation, “The state’s ability to regulate firearms and, for that matter, conduct is qualitatively different in public than in the home. Heller actually reinforces such a view. In the striking “handgun ban” of D.C., the Court stressed that banning usable handguns in the home is a ‘policy choice’ that is off the table, but that a variety of other regulatory options remain available, including categorical bans on firearm possession in certain public locations.”
- MYTH 3– State Level gun controls haven’t worked. – Scholars Charlotta Mellander and Richard Florida recently studied a state-to-state variation in gun homicide levels. Their findings were that “Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation”. This was also backed up by research on local gun control efforts and cross-border gun control efforts and cross-border gun violence.
- Myth 4– We only need better enforcement of the laws we have, not new laws. – Congress has passed several laws that actually affect person’s ability for current gun regulations to be enforced the way they’re supposed to. Even researchers over at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, a series of federal laws (Tiahrt Amendments) “limit public access to crime gun trace data, prohibit the use of gun trace data in hearings, pertaining to licensure of gun dealers and litigation against gun dealers, and restricts the ATF’s authority to require gun dealers to conduct a physical inventory of their firearms.” Other federal laws “limited the ATF compliance inspections” and grand “broad protections from lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and retail sellers.”
- MYTH 5– Sensible gun regulation is prohibitively unpopular. Not even. The New Republic’s Amy Sullivan reported that after this summer’s series of mass shootings, the majority of Americans would prefer to both enforce existing gun laws – even stricter – and pass new gun laws – when they were given the option to choose both rather than either/or.
Check out the entire story over at ThinkingProgress.Org. We here at Hip Hop Enquirer would love to hear what you think.
Watch this heartbreaking ritual video for the slain 20 child victims, of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. May God bless the mourning families. May God bless America.
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