Abstract

Guns in the United States are viewed as a sacred emblem to its independence from Great Britain. Recent mass shootings have reignited the gun-control/rights debate in the US. Gun violence can be described as the use of firearms to cause terror through harm or death to an individual or groups of people. It has claimed many innocent peoples’ lives thus resulting in national tragedies in the U.S. The main issue lies in the ownership and issuances of unlicensed guns. Some argue that in order for the crime rates due to gun violence to decline, the U.S. government needs to directly control the distribution of guns. The 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that,“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (U.S. Const. Am. 2). Those who read the Constitution with a loose interpretation believe that gun control is not unconstitutional, however, those who read the Constitution with a strict interpretation believe that gun control would prohibit people from excercising their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. The purpose of this literature review is to explore the scholarship on gun control by examining public opinion polls in the U.S., the ideological divide between advocates for gun control and gun rights, race and racial attitudes, self-interest theory, contemporary mass shootings and the future of gun control.

Highlights

  • Kopel [1] stated in his article The ideology of gun ownership and gun control in the United States, that among the categories in crimes, gun violence is the most common type of crime that occurs on a regular basis in the U.S He attributed this to how accessible guns are in the U.S and argued that it acts as an obstacle in the legislative battle against gun violence

  • Studies have examined attitudes by political ideology, race and racial attitudes, the effects of gun control legislation enacted in the early 1990s, as well as, in the aftermath of mass shootings

  • Self-interest has continually been mentioned in prior research as one of the most likely factors in people’s attitudes and what has been overlooked by prior research is the impact of age on how self-interest influences attitudes toward gun control

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Summary

Introduction

Kopel [1] stated in his article The ideology of gun ownership and gun control in the United States, that among the categories in crimes, gun violence is the most common type of crime that occurs on a regular basis in the U.S He attributed this to how accessible guns are in the U.S and argued that it acts as an obstacle in the legislative battle against gun violence. There are some other factors that need to be taken into consideration as to why the U.S has such high gun violence rates. Aborn and Koury [3] argued that the battle against gun violence is a collective responsibility that must include everyone regardless of race, age or gender. Kwon [4] stated in their study that there are currently 20,000 laws and regulations in the U.S that attempt to contain the use of firearms but this has not translated to a decline in gun violence. Singh [5] stated in his study that public pressure for gun control has been generated by large increases in the levels of violent crime

Analysis on Past Policies
Public Opinion
Ideological Split
Contemporary Mass Shootings
Findings
Conclusion

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