Stricter Gun Laws: Do the Current Gun Laws Truly Reflect What the Public Wants?

As the textbook explains, the evidence in chapter five suggests that the public opinion of America is stable, and that the public is fit to rule as a democracy. Chapter five also states that public opinion can sometimes have a strong impact on policy making. That being said, it is also crucial that the government not only listens to the concerns of the public but reflects the public’s wishes and addresses our concerns in a way that is acceptable to us. An example of how the government has not been reflecting the wishes of the American people, but in fact attempting to deter our wishes, is the school shooting in Parkland, Florida last week on Valentine’s Day. As of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, there have been 18 school shootings in the United States since the start of the new year. This number is despicable, yet nothing seems to be changing. However, the survivors of the Florida school shooting are taking a stance and refusing to back down until their voices about stricter gun laws are heard.

Emma Gonzalez, a student at the high school gave a moving speech soon after the shooting that spoke about how government is refusing to listen to students and teenagers who are crying out for help and stricter gun laws, the government claiming we are too young to understand how the government itself works. Gonzalez also responded to President Trump’s tweet that states, “So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!” Gonzalez explained how the alleged shooter was reported to authorities multiple times prior to the shooting and that Trump was attempting to blame 17 innocent lives being lost on mental illness. She claimed this was in an attempt to, in a way, sweep this tragedy under the rug and ignore the issue that he repealed a law that Obama put in place making it more difficult for people with mental illnesses to buy guns. Gonzalez also exposed Trump for accepting 30 million dollars from the NRA (National Rifle Association) to continue to support guns and people’s second amendment rights.

Millions of people across the nation are expressing their disgust of school shootings and their disgust of the law for refusing to change as school shootings continue to occur (right now, about 3 a week on average). One man, a supporter of the second amendment who even has the second amendment tattooed on his arm, posted a video of him sawing his rifle in half in support of gun reform laws. Countless celebrities are taking to twitter (Sarah Hyland, Ellen, and Hillary Clinton to name a few) to express their broken hearts over the situation and how these types of brutal attacks can be avoided by stricter gun laws. Many high school students have even agreed to take a stance and walk out of schools one day in April and refuse to come back until stricter gun laws are enforced. So why is nothing changing?

In a brief statement to the American people shortly after the shooting took place, President Trump expressed his condolences, sending “thoughts and prayers” to the victim’s families and friends and then went on to say he will be working with state and local leaders to “tackle the difficult issues of mental health,” ultimately proving that he continues to make this a matter of mental health as opposed to the easiness of accessibility to automatic weapons. Perhaps reform takes time. After all, we have learned that our government has a large system of checks and balances, and therefore has a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get this gun reform, but how long should this process truly take when innocent student’s lives are so obviously on the line?

Videos:

Additional Work Cited:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rally-parkland-shooting-survivors-rail-against-gun-laws-nra-trump-n849076

2 Responses to "Stricter Gun Laws: Do the Current Gun Laws Truly Reflect What the Public Wants?"

Chloe Blond says:

February 26, 2018 at 7:42 pm

Abigail,

As you mentioned, chapter 5 states that public opinion can sometimes have a strong impact on policy making. You also mentioned that with that being said, it is critical that the government not only listens to the concerns of the public, but reflects the public’s wishes and concerns in a way that is acceptable to the public. You make a very interesting point that the government is in fact not reflecting our wishes, using the Parkland, Florida shooting as an example. You end your post on a more hopeful note, suggesting that maybe reform just takes time. However, I stumbled upon an article that suggests a not so hopeful reasoning behind why the government is not reflecting our wishes in policy.

This study, conducted by researchers at Princeton, took data from nearly 2,000 public opinion surveys and compared what the people wanted to what the government ACTUALLY did. The researchers found that the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America has essentially no impact at all. There is a catch to this, however, I am not sure how much relief this catch provides. Gilens and Page found that economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence. Why? Because of money. People are able to hire a team of lobbyists whose entire job is to make sure the government gives that group of people what they want. Those lobbyists can target members of Congress and help raise money for their re election campaigns. Those same lobbyists can also offer those politicians lucrative jobs at their lobbying firms. Finally, those lobbyists can also write the new law themselves and give it to those politicians. It is legal for those politicians to sneak the lobbyist written law through Congress at the last second.

In summary, the government is not reflecting the majority of the people’s wishes in its actions and policy. It is obvious that in order to restore our democracy to the representative democracy it is supposed to function as, that something has to be done.

http://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congress-doesnt-care-what-you-think
Daniella Hatcher says:

February 28, 2018 at 11:41 pm

Abigail,

You brought up some interesting points that really caught my attention. I understand how you could feel as though public opinion really does not matter but it really does. Public opinion has the ability to “change the course of our history.” Public opinion is the spark to reform in our nation. Without public opinion we would not have government officials pushing for certain policies that the people they are representing want. In order to stay in office and keep a job government officials tend to lean more towards what the public wants. This is why it is important for us to have restrictions on how many years each person gets to hold in office. In order for someone to be reelected they have to be voted in by the public, and in order to be voted in they must be doing what the majority wants. Even with a government officials help change is still very hard to achieve and is a long and strenuous process in the US. It is not something that happens over night even though that is what we all want.

When talking about gun control this can be a very tricky subject. Yes “we” have been fighting for stricter gun control laws but was it really all of us? Half of the population was for stricter gun control laws and half were against. When we see a split like this it is very unlikely for change to happen and if it does happen it is not quickly. The reason being is because there is not one side pushing the government harder than the other making the topic not as pressing as you think. Whereas when we have other matters such as whether or not we should build a wall where the public appeals to one side more making it a matter that acquires immediate attention. The Parkland shooting spiked the polls for gun law control higher than it has ever been “Roughly 2 in 3 Americans now say gun control laws should be made more strict in the wake of the murder of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.” This spike will be the cause for change. Now that the public is pushing for reform and we are all mainly on the same side now it will increase the chances for change. The Presidents single opinion on the matter does not matter at all seeing as how he can not make or repeal a law by himself.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/gun-control-polling-parkland-430099
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2012/sep/03/public-opinion-influence-policy

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