Looking back in history, the United States has changed many important policies affecting every American. The American government has put in place policies that have changed how we as Americans live. These policies have included laws made to protect our environment, laws fighting against drugs and strictly regulating the consumption of alcohol, or laws protecting civil rights for minorities and women. With each major law put into place, the general public was effected and had to possibly give up something to abide by the law. Many say these laws are for the better of the people, while others argue these laws are too much and the government should not have as much power as they do. But regardless of past events, a new conflict has been brought to attention, gun violence.
    This year so far, has come and gone with more than enough tragedies to remember it by. Recently there has been many public shootings. Whether the shooting took place on a street corner of Chicago, a movie theater in Colorado, or an elementary school in Connecticut, shootings are occurring. Now we as a country must decide if we are to act, and if so, what shall we do? Well many politicians have brought many ideas to the table. Although, as usual, there are many people who do not like the idea of more laws or regulation on guns, there is a group of people who may make a difference. With hard work from Vice President Joe Biden, President Barack Obama has come up with a new piece of legislation with a mix of new laws and executive orders put out to fight violence and hopefully end some of the conflict and crime done against people with guns.
    Essentially Obama’s proposed legislation containing 23 executive orders pertaining to guns. The legislation would also include many other actions and restrictions, such as explicitly outlawing gun trafficking and lying on paperwork involving the buying and selling of guns. School safety would also be more heavily enforced, with $150 million into a program hiring over 1,000 new school resource officers. Another $15 million project will emerge investing in training teachers to better respond to people with a mental illness with another $40 million into districts helping refer students to mental health services. Another $10 million would be brought up for the research on the link between video games and gun violence. Finally, the order would include much more in depth record keeping with guns making it easier for law enforcement to trace a gun back to its original owner for investigations. Although most would call some action done to prevent  gun violence necessary by the president, some of the legislation is looked upon as extremely controversial. There were three main parts of the legislation that really drive question in not only the power of the government but also if order effects our constructional rights. One of the three is universal background checks for every single person buying a gun in the country. Another of the three controversial orders would be the banning of high capacity clips that have the ability to hold 10 bullets or more at the same time. Finally, the most controversial order would be the complete ban the sale of military styled assault weapons. Despite the fact many people find these executive orders to be unnecessary no matter what their reason is, there has been events similar to these that have occurred before in America’s history. In 1968, the ‘Gun Control Act’ was established to did not allow the sale of guns to the mentally disabled. In 1993, the ‘Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act’ required a background check of purchases from federally licensed dealers. More significantly, between 1994 and 2004 there was in fact a complete assault weapons ban. Now with Obama’s gun legislation, it is up to congress to pass the legislation. However, despite the fact congress already does not see eye to eye with Obama, there are organizations such as the NRA (National Rifle Association) who are also completely against the president on the idea of any kind of ban with large capacity clips or military assault weapons. There are also companies who happen to fund a lot of the politician’s campaigns who are against the president in gun legislation.
    Now without looking at if the legislation proposed has an effect on our rights, there is the idea that gun legislation is more than just putting more rules and regulation for guns, but for everything. There are many in our country who are convinced Obama is trying to make the government big and powerful. Specifically members of the GOP, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio. As Rubio said in his response to the president’s State of the Union speech, “The president is basically asking us to abandon that. He’s asking us to embrace the principles of more government, more government spending, more government control of our economy.” Although in this statement Rubio is talking more specifically on the economy, he still means the same basic idea. He believes Obama’s policies are making the government bigger and more powerful, which according to him, is what the president wants. Some would question why Obama would want to make a bigger government with lots of power over the people. Especially now with the whole idea that if every piece of Obama’s proposed gun legislation were to go into effect, Americans would no longer be able to buy military style assault weapons. This worries some Americans because there are a lot of Americans, similar to Rubio, who believe a smaller government will allow the people and private companies to prosper and live a more simple life if there were less regulation.
    Now the question remains, why would Obama want to ‘take our guns’ and create a more powerful government? Well there are few people who sincerely believe Obama is attempting to take over with the power of his government. People believe Obama is dismantle the second amendment. One of the people believing Obama is attempting a government takeover is Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association. LaPierre said before the 2012 election that Obama will “lull gun owners into a false sense of security, and play us for fools in the 2012 election.” Some people believe Obama is secretly a muslim wanting to cut off American citizens of their natural resources by dedicating more federal land and then taking away our guns. According to him, Obama is planning on  “a full-scale, sustained, all-out campaign to excise the Second Amendment from our Bill of Rights through legislation, litigation, regulation, executive orders, judicial fiat, international treaties—in short, all the levers of power of all three branches of government”
    Now despite all this talk on Obama gutting the second amendment and disarming the country’s ‘militia,’ is Obama really taking away our second amendment right? An abounding amount of people believe Obama’s gun legislation is completely unconstitutional. The second amendment was put in by our Founding Fathers to arm our militia to ensure the government could never take over. The idea our government is going to take over the country is probably never going to happen in this country. But the amendment still is important to people who may be gun collectors, hunters, or sportsmen. So is Obama’s legislation constitutional? Well looking back at what Obama’s legislation actually contains, the legislation would only ban large capacity clips and military assault weapons. This legislation would not have any effect on guns such as hunting rifles or pistols. As former president Ronald Reagan once said, “I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home.” Therefore, according to Reagan, arguably one of the greatest presidents of all time who happened to be a republican that believed in small government, an assault weapon is not a sporting gun. If it’s not a sporting gun, then does it have a place to be on our streets?
    Looking back on the tragedies that have occurred, there have been occurrences such as Oikos University, a mall theater in Aurora, or in an elementary school in Newtown. America had two of the worst mass shootings in history. Now compared to our own history that looks bad. But how do we look compared to the rest of the world? Well according to the United Nations, the United States has the fourth highest rate of murder with a firearm.
Now what people like Obama is looking at are how the shootings occurred. Yes the Sandy shooting was committed with simply pistols, but there is a different look with the theater shooting. The theater shooting was committed with a military-style assault weapon and killed 12 people and injured 58. Obama understands the importance of the right to bear arms. But there are more important inalienable rights that we as Americans are born with, as Obama stated; “These rights - including those to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - were denied to victims of high profile shooting such as those at Virginia Tech last decade and shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.” Obama understands not all crime can be fixed with a regulation. An executive order can not fix the issue. Government cannot solve all crime. No law will bring the end of gun homicides. But as Obama said, “If there’s one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.”
    It’s this thinking that pushes Obama to pass gun legislation. He isn’t passing this legislation for some kind of government takeover. He doesn’t want the never ending power of the White House. Obama simply wants to make people not only feel safer but know they do not have to worry about dropping their little kid off at 1st grade or using the luxury of going to see a simple movie. Obama does not want first responders such as police officers to be out-gunned by someone who could easily obtain the power to kill and injure large amounts of people in a short amount of time.