The Second Amendment

What is the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment is at the heart of the ongoing debate about the right to bear arms and gun control. The Second Amendment is part of the US Constitution. The US Constitution was written in 1787, making it the oldest written national constitution still in use. The Second Amendment is one of the first additions to the Constitution, added in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. It says:

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.

Partrick Charles writes for the Encyclopedia Britannica that the idea of a militia at the time had its root in Elizabeth I’s attempt to require individuals by law to take part to defend the kingdom. So originally, the right to “keep and bear Arms” was written into the Constitution to make sure the nation could defend itselthe right to “keep and bear Arms” was written into the Constitution to make sure people could defend the states. However, by the end of the 20th century, more and more judges and large parts of the American public adopted the position that the Second Amendment gives the individual the right to “keep and bear Arms” for self-defence.

Watch the following view to get an idea of the controversy:

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Constitution-of-the-United-States-of-America

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Second-Amendment

What is the NRA?

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is the most important lobbying group for gun rights in the US. In the second half of the 20th century it has campaigned “against virtually any legislative proposal for the control of firearms” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023), arguing they infringe Second Amendment rights. The chart below shows the large sums, the NRA spends lobbying for gun rights:

Find more statistics at Statista

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Rifle-Association-of-America

Gun violence in the US

The US has a very high gun death rate. Gramlich (Pew Research Center, 2023) reports that for 2016, there were 10.6 deaths per 100,000 people in the US copmared to 2.1 per 100,000 in Canada, 2.7 in France and 0.9 in Germany.

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/