Why should students care about Gun Control?

Answer 1

Student or not, every citizen and anyone who is on the path to become a citizen of the United States should care deeply about about any legislation or interpretation by the courts that could affect the way our government treats any of our civil rights, one of which is the right to own and use firearms as delineated in the Second Amendment. Furthermore, t

he topic of gun control presents an excellent opportunity for students to learn more about the Constitution and to engage incivil debate regarding itsconsideration with our federal, state and municipal legal systems that together ultimately govern which firearms are legal where.

It is recommended that anyone who is not especially familiar with the Constitution in general, and specifically with the Second Amendment, or who wants to get the most from this answer find a copy on the internet they may legally print out.

Civil rights are those delineated in the

Bill of Rights, which is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the

United States Constitution. Of course, the body of the Constitution and

all amendments to it lay the foundation to how the United States government operates. This is because all bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the President must be constitutional; they have to be consistent with the "rules" in our Constitution.

Another reason gun control is an excellent topic for discussion by students is that it is a verycontroversial subject, and many people are very passionate with respect to their personal interpretation of the Second Amendment. Finally, while all decisions by the Supreme Court are extremely important since virtually every one clarifies and/or further defines or even redefines the meaning of at least one constitutional amendment, cases that are generally considered "landmark" are relatively rare. One such landmark and fairly recent case involved the Supreme Court's clarification of the Second Amendment. In the 2008 case ofDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, the Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, asopposed to the interpretation that it only guaranteed members of a state's militia to keep and bear arms.

As passed by Congress in 1791, the Second Amendment reads: "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."