People are dying

  Last Jan. 5th, President Obama announced strong gun control executive actions as a result of the past shooting incidents’ bereaved families. President Obama sincerely appealed to people to support his executive actions, saying, “Because people are dying. And the constant excuses for inaction no longer do, no longer suffice.” The president even became speechless in tears when he was carefully addressing the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012. The president strongly criticized the assembly(parliament) because they are blocking the passage of the gun control bill while people are dying. He chose to order the executive actions because the bill that can tighten the current gun control kept foundered in the assembly. The contents of the executive actions the president ordered were first; every single person in the business of selling firearms must get a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives(ATF), and second; background checking for people trying to buy firearms is a must. The purposes are to fundamentally block the expedited transactions of firearms occurring on the internet or in gun shows and to prevent the transactions without checking buyers’ criminal histories or mental diseases.
  President Obama proposed a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care. The FBI will hire more than 230 additional examiners and other staff to help process the background checks, and the ATF has established an Internet Investigation Center to track illegal online firearms trafficking and is dedicating $4 million and additional personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.



Amendment No. 2 must be protected

  Amendment No. 2 of the U.S. constitutions is, “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,” so the rights to fight against tyrannical government and the support of state governments’ independence are stated. This is one of America’s founding principles, so the rights to have arms are stipulated. Many Americans have a philosophy of self-defense saying, ‘Protecting myself and my family is not for the police, but the gun I own’. On account of it, the executive actions on gun control cannot gain national sympathy in spite of the Columbine high school massacre or Virginia tech shooting.
  The Republican presidential candidates strongly opposed Obama’s executive actions to gain conservatives’ support because most conservatives support the possession of firearms and lots of Republicans have support from the firearms manufacturers.
  Last Jan. 2nd, the front-running man of the Republicans, Donald Trump, said, “There’s an assault on the Second Amendment,” while on his campaign. He boasted that he will “unsign” President Obama’s actions on gun control and will veto it. In addition, on Jan. 3rd, he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I don’t like anything having to do with changing our Second Amendment. We have plenty of rules and regulations. There are plenty of things they can do right now that are already there. They don’t do them.”
  Another main presidential candidate of the Republicans, Ted Cruz, also declared to negate the president’s executive actions on his campaign, saying, “President Obama can abuse his power all he wants. He has a phone and he has a pen, but if you live by the pen you die by the pen, and my pen has got an eraser!”



Divergent opinions, upcoming moment of the decision

  On Jan. 19th, the U.S. conservative group ‘Freedom Watch’ sued President Obama stating that he violated the 2nd amendment, raising the voices of the Republicans,  conservatives, and the gun apologists. Lawyer Larry Klayman, a founder of the Freedom Watch and a member of the National Rifle Association, condemned that it is an illegal abuse of the U.S. administration and is beyond the President’s authority.
  President Obama justified his executive actions on gun control, saying it is all in accordance with the 2nd amendment, in his announcement on Jan, 5th. He said that new regulation proposals just sort out people who must not own firearms, not just denying owning firearms.
  According to the statistics presented by the U.S. nonprofit organization Violence Policy Center, 21 states out of 50 have more death tolls from firearm accidents than traffic accidents. Especially in Alaska, it is tallied that the death tolls from firearm accidents were 145, but traffic accident fatalities were 87. The deaths from firearm accidents keep increasing annually, whereas the traffic accidents’ deaths are decreasing due to the obligation of safety belts and airbag installation. Last year, accidental firearm deaths were over 13,000, excluding suicides. In this upcoming November, Americans will be standing in front of the moment of the decision; to protect themselves with firearms, or to choose the bill that protects them from firearms.

By Min Tae-kwan
tk36@cbnu.ac.kr