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Case Study: GUNS IN THE USA
- 100 people including a dozen children are shot dead in the USA
in an average day.
- The United States Constitution, adopted over two hundred years
ago, enshrines an individual's right to keep and bear arms.
- The USA is currently debating whether the cost of an individual's
right to own a gun is too great for the community to bear.
Analysis
The USA has the largest number of guns in private hands of any country
in the world with 60 million people owning a combined arsenal of
over 200 million firearms.
The US constitution enshrines in the Second Amendment the people's
right to keep and bear arms. Advocates of firearm control argue
that these laws are anachronistic belonging to the long-gone days
of the frontier. They point to the high levels of gun-related murder
and violent crime in the US to stress the need for reform.
The influential firearms lobby headed by the National Rifle Association,
believes gun ownership to be a personal and moral right and dismisses
the link between widespread gun ownership and high gun violence
with its slogan 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people'.
Article 29 recognises that the State can restrict
the rights of an individual, but only to protect the rights of others
and to meet the "just requirements of morality, public order
and the general welfare in a democratic society".
As the list of school shootings rise (Columbine,
Jonesboro and Springfield are just three) and the numbers of gun-related
deaths soar, the question for the people of the USA is whether that
time has now come.
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