The issue of gun control has been a divisive element of American politics for over four decades. The republican and democrat senators and members of Congress have been unwilling to unanimously support a bill through all the stages to full implementation because of differing interests and alliances outside politics. It is only the Gun Control Act of 1968 that was implemented without major objections. The facilitating factors for the implementation were the assassination of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The American presidencies have one thing in common, which is that most of them have failed to oversee major legislation through Congress and the Senate. As a result, more Americans are getting more armed, and more violence permeates all neighborhoods in the nation. The lack of consensus in Congress and the Senate led to the failure of the Gun Control Overhaul Bill proposed by Manchin and Toomey for President Obama. As a result, more gun violence has been witnessed, with indiscriminate shootings taking away innocent lives.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 should have been sufficient to protect Americans from the never-ending cycle of gun violence. The prospect of taking guns away from the populace does not sit well with the American people (Polan, 2017). The reason for the vehement defense for guns that gave brought chaos and death is said to be for personal protection. President Obama proposed the Gun Control Overhaul bill proposed by President Obama to reduce the increasing cases of mass shootings across the united states. However, the republican senators chose to shoot down the bill halfway through the implementation process (Hopkinson, 2013). The bill was proposed as a compromise by democrat senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and republican senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania. The Obama administration was responding to the recent reckless shooting in a school that claimed 51 lives. President Obama and Vice Biden were hoping that the public outcry raised by the shootings would prompt the Republican senators and members of Congress to abandon partisan politics for the good of the country (Polan, 2017). However, the vote failed terribly, with 90% of the republicans voting to stop the bill from progressing to the next stage. President Obama might have hoped that the public interest in the matter would influence the vote, but it did not leave the situation worse. The united states have a population of less than 5% of the world's total, yet it has the highest gun ratio in 120 guns per 100 people.
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The bill awaits renewed efforts to revitalize the efforts to push for its implementation, although the prospect is still grim with the partisan leadership of Senate and Congress fresh. However, the problem is raising more public scrutiny with each new mass shooting case that claims lives and leaves scores wounded (Polan, 2017). The current situation is problematic because the attention cycle still takes the usual path of heightened public interest followed by a feigned desire to cause change. Eventually, there is no real change to fix gun violence, and the public has lost faith in the system's ability to make any real transformation. Although the mass shootings and increased gun incidents in the united states have acted as viable focus points for implementing the much-needed changes, the politicians have chosen not to gang together to pass a policy to curtail the reckless sale of guns.
The Obama bill proposed to uphold all the requirements included in the Gun Control Act. The bill's proponents suggested that the bill would create a requirement for gun dealers not to sell guns at gun shows (Hopkinson, 2013). Homicide statistics indicate that most guns used in homicides were bought without the imposition of a waiting period. The gun control act does not impose any requirements for dealers who sell guns in gun shows. The sellers can sell guns without screening the buyers. The sale of guns without screening the buyers has led to increases in suicides, murders, and arming of convicted felons. Screening of buyers is a requirement under federal law to ensure that the buyers are mentally healthy, they are not felons, and they do not have a history of gun misuse. This feature of the bill was meant to ensure that only the right people have guns (Hopkinson, 2013). The bill also sought dealers to keep a record of their customers and the exact guns they sold. This requirement caused jitters among the republican senators and may have contributed to its failure. Furthermore, the bill was intended to halt the sale of automatic weapons and semiautomatic guns that have similar discharge as automatic guns. This rule also meant that high volume magazines would be expunged from the market as a requirement by law.
Apart from the division in the Senate and Congress, the bill failed because of two other elements. One is the influence of the National Rifle Association, which a private lobby group against gun control (Steidley, 2018). The lobby group has over 1.5 million Americans, and most Republicans have ties to the NRA. The national rifle association spread lies and misinformation that the bill would interfere with the privacy of gun owners and that the government would target gun dealers and their customers because of the requirement to maintain an electronic record of all buyers (Steidley, 2018). The NRA was able to influence the senators to turn down the bill despite the repercussions from the electorates. The other cause for the bill's failure is the second amendment of the united states constitution which grants all Americans the right to own and bear arms (Cornell & Cornell, 2018). The supreme court of the united states ruled in Heller v. Washington in favor of the defendant. Washington had passed legislation to ban the ownership and use of handguns. A petitioner, Heller, petitioned the legality of the move, and the supreme court ruled in his favor (Mekail et al., 2018). The right to own guns is enshrined in the United States Constitution as one of the inalienable rights. Every legislation to limit the use of guns in the country is met with the defense of the second amendment.
Recommendations
Gun ownership in the United States shall continue to rise unabated unless politicians set aside their partisan divisiveness and act in the state's interests. First, they must revitalize the gun control overhaul bill not to limit ownership of guns to the American people but to ensure that only the right people own guns and through legal channels. Second, the bill should include a provision for manufacturers to serialize all bullets to ensure that they can be easily tracked back to the seller and whoever bought them if a gun is used in a crime. Third, there is a need to have a national dialogue on guns and gun use. The American people are quick to denounce gun violence, but they are unwilling to acknowledge their role in promoting such violence.
Conclusion
The gun situation is critical, and it requires joint efforts to forge a lasting solution. It is the right moment for the leadership to take a united front to combat gun violence and gun safety before it spirals out of control. The need to make policy changes should not be misconstrued to mean that the government wants to deny the American people their rights. On the contrary, the government has a mandate to ensure that the rights of its people enshrined in the constitution are upheld in a manner that keeps the people safe while ensuring that the country operates with sanity.
References
Cornell, S., & Cornell, E. (2018). The Second Amendment and firearms regulation: A venerable tradition regulating liberty while securing public safety.
Hopkinson, J. (2013). Vitter Eyes Piecemeal TSCA Reform To Counter Democrats' Overhaul Bill. Inside EPA's Risk Policy Report , 20 (8), 1-13.
Mekail, J., Sarani, B., & O'Rourke, A. (2018). District of Columbia v Heller: A Time Series Analysis on the Impact of Legislation on Gun Violence in Washington, DC.
Steidley, T. (2018). Big guns or big talk? How the national rifle association matters for conceal carry weapons laws. Mobilization: An International Quarterly , 23 (1), 101-125.
Polan, R. B. (2017). The Context of Violence: The Lautenberg Amendment & Interpretive Issues in the Gun Control Act. Brook. L. Rev. , 83 , 1441.
