WK6 ASSIGNMENT CA499

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Feedback to Learner10/19/17 2:18 PM

Greg, you are RIGHT on task here with what you need to produce. Since this is the first draft, do continue to dig deeper into the issues. Also, produce more references, especially to support your second-to-the-last paragraph related to the Second Amendment and the law supporting both sides of the issue. What an interesting point.

Gun Control: A Focus on Criminal Justice and Government

Debates on gun control have been the epitome of political contention for quite some time.

Every group and stakeholder in the debate has a perspective that is justified by a clause from the

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constitution regarding fundamental rights accorded to all citizens. While gun control and gun

ownership issues are found in many countries all over the world, this analysis will utilize the

United States as a case on point with which to explore the topic of gun control. To begin with, it

is important to present the problem and how it impacts the people of America. The United States

has a gun ownership system that makes it possible for eligible individuals to purchase and own

firearms for their personal security. On the other hand, the United States has been subjected

through arrays of gun violence and mass shooting cases that are directly attributed to its lack of

stringent gun control policies. The latest event is a Las Vegas shooting in which a shooter fired

bullets using an automatic rifle at party-goers who attended an outdoor concert in the Mandalay

Bay Hotel leaving 59 people dead and five hundred more injured (Bui, Zapotosky, Barret, &

Berman, 2017). The number of guns allegedly in the hands of civilians in the United States is

estimated at 300 million. This has been cited as the fundamental cause of the relatively high rates

of gun violence in the country. For decades, America’s political front has struggled to develop

effective policies that would put the matter to rest. In this analysis, concepts from criminal

justice and government as related disciplines will be utilized to develop a strategy to improve

gun control in the United States.

Criminal justice is a discipline that deals with the detection, detainment, trial and

punishment of perpetrators of criminal activities. It is a field of study that explores practices and

strategies utilized by arms of governments to accomplish social control by preventing and

mitigating crime. On the other hand, the discipline of government involves the theory and

practice of government, exploration of how politics influences policy making and administration

as well as the general mechanisms that governments as entities use to influence the people. These

two disciplines will be utilized side by side to understand the plight of gun control and establish

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a strategy with which to settle the contention. Given the age of the gun control debate, a large

number of scholars have presented varying perspectives on what governments and stakeholders

in the policy making process are not doing to reduce gun violence and promote responsible use

of firearms. In this analysis, concepts and facts from the criminal justice view of gun control will

be used to engage the debate and provide aspects of justification as to which policy approach is

best suited to solve the problem. On the other hand, policy making and administration processes

as constructs of government will be utilized to design a policy approach informed by the criminal

justice view that will provide a solution for the problem.

The objective of any criminal justice system is to establish peace in the society through

specific control mechanisms that objectify the reduction of crime. This means that the potential

of American criminal justice system must be reflected from the reduction of crime rate in the

country. In this case, it is important to utilize gun violence statistics to establish what proportion

of crime in America is directly attributed to weak gun control policies. Since the Sandy Hook

Elementary School shooting in 2012, there have been an estimated 1,500 mass shooting in the

United States alone. Fundamentally, a criminal justice policy is only viable if it is designed

within the stipulations of the constitution and results into a decrease in crime rate. According to

Lott (2013), understanding crime and gun control laws is key to solving this stalemate. A

significant number of research highlight that the increasing number of violent crime in which

guns are used in the United States are largely because guns are easy to acquire. A criminal justice

system will only work optimally if the environment is designed to promote its objectives. This

means that criminal justice entities are significantly influenced by policies developed by the

government to establish a crime free nation. This is the premise on which the proponents

supporting increased gun control base their arguments.

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A large number of research articles have alluded to the relationship between gun

ownership and crime rate. Particularly in America, a significant proportion of crime is directly

attributed to the fact that gun ownership is a culture. According to Kleck (2015), it is not

necessarily true that higher gun ownership rates cause higher crime rates.This research

highlights that only weak research allude to an existing relationship between these two factors,

strong research establishes that there is no correlation. However, other research highlight that

states with larger number of guns experience more deaths than those with less guns. Similarly,

those states with stricter gun control policies register fewer deaths as a result of gun violence.

What this means is that guns also play a role in promoting crime. Therefore, as much as gun

ownership contributes to crime, sufficient research evidence is required to utilize gun control as a

mechanism of reducing violent crime. In a similar research by Monuteaux, Lee, Hemenway,

Mannix, Fleegler (2015), it was established that the contrary was true, a research finding that

supports the contribution of guns to crime.

On the other hand, the United States government has a long history of trying to utilize the

policy framework to control gun ownership and by extension, gun violence. America being a gun

culture, there is a strong will be the people to support gun ownership or less gun control laws to

service this cultural preference. It must be noted that the Second Amendment introduces a bone

of contention in its interpretation. Both sides of the arguments cite the law as establishing

provisions for them to either own guns for their safety and self-protection or confinement of gun

ownership to officers mandated by the constitution to protect the public. While this standoff

continues, more and more guns are getting into the hands of criminals who then perpetrate the

mass shootings, homicides and suicides that taint the potential of the country’s policy framework

and criminal justice system.

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In conclusion, there are a number of criminal justice interventions that can be embraced

to solve the problem. It must be noted that this requires the coordination of both disciplines

explored in this analysis. The first recommendation is the introduction of gun courts which will

be used to develop a criminal justice approach to controlling gun abuse (Blocher & Miller,

2016). Secondly, there is need to enhance sentencing for firearm related crimes. It is important to

understand that the realization of these recommendations hugely depend on greater

understanding of policy development process. This is because there have been significant

constitutional and social impediments that have hindered the strengthening of the gun control

policies.

References

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Blocher, J., & Miller, D. A. (2016). What is gun control? Direct burdens, incidental burdens, and

the boundaries of the Second Amendment. The University of Chicago Law Review, 295-

355.

Bui, L., Zapotosky, M., Barret, D., & Berman, M. (2017, 10 2). At least 59 killed in Las Vegas

shooting rampage, more than 500 others injured. The Washington Post.

Kleck, G. (2015). The impact of gun ownership rates on crime rates: A methodological review of

the evidence. Journal of criminal justice, 43(1), 40-48.

Lott, J. R. (2013). More guns, less crime: Understanding crime and gun control laws. University

of Chicago Press.

Monuteaux, M. C., Lee, L. K., Hemenway, D., Mannix, R., & Fleegler, E. W. (2015). Firearm

ownership and violent crime in the US: an ecologic study. American journal of preventive

medicine, 49(2), 207-214.

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