A634.8.3.RB- Gun Control: What is the Answer?

In recent years, we have witnessed many tragedies with respect to guns in the workplace. Do citizens have a right to bear arms? Answer the question in your reflection blog. State your opinion and follow up your position with supporting documentation. Next, present the opposing side to your stance. Use external sources to enhance your claims.

            The right to bear arms is one of the most debated topics of all time. Early on the right was more of a survival aspect I believe, but in the years to follow has been blown way out of proportion. For like most people in support of this right I tend to focus not so much on the gun ownership value and most on the freedom. I could definitely get on board with an agenda that modifies gun control but don't necessarily support a principle that starts to remove freedoms, because when then will it stop? So I'm in support of modifying the specific topic about guns, but don't support that very notion because it will likely lead to other stripped freedoms. Kind of sounds like an unfounded slippery slope: fully acknowledge this but still want to stick with some core values.

            Others may argue my viewpoint because I do however stand for a modification of the first amendment as written in previous articles. The specific piece to the first amendment I'd like to see rewritten being the freedom of the press. So how can I support modification here that is again binding to the very same notion but not support it through gun control? This is difficult to explain because some things in your gut just don't necessarily make sense. I don't like the notion that redacting parts of freedom of the press because they also could start a snowball effect that modifies other freedoms, but I'm willing because of the greater harm the press has though political propaganda. Now it's even more ironic to say "more harm" because of the deadly principle that guns are founded. Man, the more I write the harder it becomes to support these notions. Let's see what other folks have to say.

            LaFollette (2007) helps me to understand my dilemma from his descriptions about "tipping the scales" (p. 179). This is where some people support specific notions of the argument but don't like all the lingering baggage that comes along with it. Perfect example is our current COVID relief bill that goes before the senate really soon. I don't think anybody isn't in support of COVID relief but this bill only has about 10% of the provision providing direct support. So when do you tip the scale in a decision? Apply this to gun control from a body count like COVID. Is it a thousand dead, ten thousand, a million before one decides to tip the scale? How then do we satisfy a need to cut the baggage? The topic is really just the tip of the iceberg because of just the depth and breadth the topic becomes. In the Army we call these wicked problems because they really cannot be solved.

            Bring the gun to the workplace and now we have a whole new set of variables to contend with. Now open carry a weapon at work and the topic goes off on a whole new tangent. Have your CEO open carry and what message does that say about his vision on a defensible culture? Sorkin (2019) mentions that CEO's are getting all too tired about legislators failing to hear the common sense that the people have been screaming. You can flip these cards for hours and days about one simple notion and turn it into thousands of different dilemmas that may or may not even support your original topic at hand. This to me is just like virus variants. You have your initial point of contention that get modified but yet carries some of the initial code into another situation, modifies again and now carries less code of the host but still carries its original title.

            Shepardson (2020) brings the argument from a justice perspective. "Banks, credit card companies, and retailers have unique insight into the behavior and purchasing patterns that can help identify and prevent mass shootings." He also claims that "The red flags are there—someone just needs to be paying attention." So why aren't we paying attention? Are the people really screaming about this topic or are people really just on a scale that keeps flopping left and right because of all the baggage that is being piled on or how the true information is being portrayed? Have we lost sight of a core values because we fail to actually see then due to the fact that so many barriers have blinded us? Bottom line in this argument is that it's hard to pinpoint anything specific but will definitely concede to the fact that there are many flavors of freedom that don't taste very good at all, but then again at least we are still free to taste.

References

LaFollette, H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Shepardson, N. (2020). Should banks be in the gun control business? Retrieved from https://reason.com/2020/01/20/should-banks-be-in-the-gun-control-business/

Sorkin, A. (2019). 'Simply unacceptable': Executives demand senate action on gun violence. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/business/dealbook/gun-background-checks-business.html