Research On The Dilemma Of Gun Control

The gun has played an important role in American history. With the development of society, gun violence occurred frequently. Gun control has become an important issue in American society. Each time school shooting happened, the topic of gun control would alwaysignite a fresh debate. The progress of gun control has been slow in peacetime. Despite the attention, determined action about gun control may be difficult to take. Gun control involves all kinds of interests and seems to be in a dilemma with a lot of attention and no way out.The paper describes the progress of gun control by analyzing the constitution and the American political process, which comes to a conclusion that it’s the American democracy itself has led to the dilemma of gun control. Firstly, the law root of the dilemma is The Second Amendment. The unique language style of The Second Amendment have generated two different interpretations which define the right of the people to keep and bear arms as individual and collective respectively. Secondly, the conflict of interest has aggravated the situation. The Democracts support gun control while the Republicans oppose it. The two parties failed to reach a consensus. Some interest groups such as National Rifle Association are involved in political processes for their own interests and play a key role.The dilemma of gun control in US reflects the tension between individual rights and public good, legislation and jurisdiction, Federation and States, and most important, the balance and compromise of political power, which is the main characteristic of the American liberal democracy. Therefore, this paper argues that the dilemma of gun control has its root deep in the very nature of the U.S. political system.