PP105 Introduction to State and Local Government
Mark D Black
Unit 6 Assignment
30 April 2013
Prof. Lisa Saye
HM 545: Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The memorial expresses the sense of the Florida Legislature that the President’s Proposal to constrain the people’s access to arms violates the U.S. Constitution. The memorial also expresses the Legislature’s intent to lawfully overturn federal firearm control measures that violate the U.S. Constitution. The Second Amendment protects the individual right to possess for lawful purposes a firearm in common use. That right applies to state regulation as well. The U.S. Supreme Court has found exceptions to that constitutional right, such as longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by the mentally ill. That same court has not specified the level of heightened scrutiny applicable to government measures that constrain that guaranteed right.
In opposition to HM 545: Right to Keep and Bear Arms. And in support of the president’s proposal to renew a prohibition on assault weapons sales, require criminal background checks on all gun purchases, closing a loophole for gun show sales, and passing a new federal gun trafficking law long sought by big city mayors to keep out of state guns off their streets.
Whether the Second Amendment is applied to the federal government alone, or to state and local governments as well, we have to ask whether it has become out dated. If one focuses on the concern that primarily animated the founding generation preventing tyranny it is quite plain that an armed citizenry is much less important today than it was when the Second Amendment was adopted. Two hundred years of relative political stability have assured us that we have less reason to fear political coups than we might have had when the nation was young. And the great leaps forward in military technology have created a situation in which armed civilians would be less effective in resisting a tyrannical government than their eighteenth century counterparts.
A recent poll from the Pew Research Center showed that a majority of Americans 55 percent back a ban on "assault-style weapons.” A partisan breakdown shows that only about four in ten Republicans support such restrictions, compared to a broad majority of Democrats. Until now, Obama had done little to change America's gun culture. Just days before his second inauguration, he appeared determined to champion gun control in his next term. His plan calls on Congress to renew a prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, require criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and pass a new federal gun trafficking law long sought by big city mayors to keep out of state guns off their streets according to Spetalnick and Mason (2013). He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval according to Dann (2013). These include improving the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research on gun violence, putting more counselors and resource officers in schools and better access to mental health services Gun shows provide an avenue for the sale and exchange of firearms by federal firearms licensees. Such shows also are a venue for private sellers who buy and sell firearms for their personal collections or as a hobby. In these situations, the sellers are not required to have a federal firearms license. Although federal firearms laws apply to both FFLs and private sellers at gun shows, private sellers, unlike FFLs, are under no legal obligation to ask purchasers whether they are legally eligible to buy guns or to verify purchasers' legal status through background checks according to Justice (2012).
In the three-year period from October 2003 through September 2006, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) conducted 202 operations at 195 gun shows, leading to 121 arrests and 83 convictions (with
