President Barack Obama, the United States of America’s 44th president is on his second term of presidency and has addressed more social and financial issues during his tenure than crime control policies. President Obama came into office in 2009 and continues to serve as President of the United States. As one evaluates the policies that are in place during his administration a conclusion can be made that his primary focus has been that of health care, civil rights, and foreign policy amongst other agendas that don’t necessarily address his crime policy. President Obama has not proposed any majorly significant crime policies or drastic changes in the crime policies that were in place prior to his appointment (Marion & Oliver, 2012). Paul Light (as cited by Marion & Oliver, 2012) describes the president’s agenda as one that is constantly changing and an indicator of what the President believes to be the most important issues that his administration is facing. President Obama’s initial crime policy was focused on drug control and …show more content…
The crime control policy that President Obama has focused heavily on has been the political agenda to try and stop gun induced violence. In January of this year President Obama introduced six proposals to address federal gun laws, requiring licensing and background checks for gun sellers, hiring more FBI personnel for background checks, hiring more agents for enforcement, more funding for the treatment for the mentally ill, requiring gun dealers to report lost or stolen guns, and additional research regarding gun violence and safety (Obama’s Gun Proposal, 2016). President Obama’s Gun control policies were influenced by mass shootings that have taken place throughout cities all over America and his stance has been to improve safety and reduce gun induced
A growing number of publicized tragedies caused by gun violence have caused a great stir in the American community. Recently, President Barack Obama has made proposals to tighten the regulation of and the restrictions on the possession of weapons in America to lessen these tragedies. Should the legislative branch decide in favor of his proposals, all American citizens who do or wish to own the type of weapons in question or who use current loopholes in existing policy would be directly affected. His proposals, which are to “require background checks for all gun sales, strengthen the background check system for gun sales, pass a new, stronger ban on assault weapons, limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, finish the job of getting armor-piercing bullets off the streets, give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crime, end the freeze on gun violence research, make our schools safer with new resource officers and counselors, better emergency response plans, and more nurturing school climates, [and] ensure quality coverage of mental health treatment, particularly for young people,” have been cause for a large amount of recent debate (whitehouse.gov).
The Obama administration is making valiant efforts to reduce gun violence in our country, and protect American citizens, but they need to re-evaluate some of their efforts. Both advocates of gun control and groups that oppose gun control were stricken with heartbreak over the massive shootings. Both parties want to help reduce gun violence, but is the Obama administration taking the right steps? Even though Obama and his administration have good intentions, they do not have the most efficient approach to reduction of gun violence. They are so worried about the safety of our people, that they are creating laws from a knee jerk reaction. As a country, we need to realize that these laws are the starting points of losing our 2nd amendment freedoms, and we to acknowledge that these restrictions are not the best way to prevent further violence in the future.
Criminals in the United States often get an unfair prison sentence due to the current imperfect system. The laws and guidelines that are used to determine an offender 's sentence are greatly flawed. Some crimes are much more severe than others; therefore using the same rules and regulations for all crimes as if they are all the same is unfitting. A drug dealer, a murder, and a fraudster could receive the same amount of prison time which is clearly unfair and unreasonable. Changing the guidelines that are followed would be lawful and the morally right thing to do.
Imagine being forced to crawl and hide with gunshots near your ears. Imagine seeing people shot to death in front of you. Believe it or not, scenes like these occur on a daily basis in America. In the first 320 days of this year there were 325 mass shootings in the nation, defined as where there were more than four victims at each shooting. (Mass Shooting Tracker). This egregious level of violence is unacceptable in a developed country and major reform in gun legislation to improve the tragic state of public safety in the United States today. Although critics of expanded gun legislation incorrectly argue that easier access to guns increases safety and that gun laws are unconstitutional, it is imperative that America adopts stronger gun control legislation because heightened regulations reduce crime rates and have successfully improved public safety in other developed countries. In a country like the United States, no one
On Friday morning, November 6th, a man in New York city woke up and watched the news. There he saw former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, announcing his ideas for gun control. The news stated that after spending millions of dollars to spread his “Everytown for Gun Safety” across the country, United States citizens were still not impressed. Bloomberg’s main goals are to enforce stricter background checks, remove guns from domestic abusers, and give families the right to remove guns from people they believe are dangerous. According to the “Gun Control Overview,” pro-gun control advocates only focus on a select few gun violence issues, and they tend to repeat the same examples in their rhetoric. The gun control is one of the most debated
...ough tougher gun regulations. It is reasonable to state that disarming civilians through stricter gun laws is the best method to reduce crime. As President Barack Obama stated during the Obama-Romney 2012 debate on October 16th, 2012, “We're a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment...My belief is that we have to enforce the laws we've already got, make sure that we're keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, those who are mentally ill. We've done a much better job in terms of background checks, but we've got more to do when it comes to enforcement. But weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence” ("Barack Obama on Gun Control", n.d., para. 3).
The question of whether gun control policies increase, decrease or have no effect on rates of gun violence is a difficult scientific question. While a variety of disparate sources of data on rates of firearm-related injuries and deaths, firearms markets, and the relationships between rates of gun ownership and violence exist, research into the efficacy of various gun controls has been largely inadequate. A 2004 National Research Council critical review found that while some strong conclusions are warranted from current research, the state of our knowledge is generally poor. Despite the potential for improved research design, the National Research Council review concludes that the gaps in our knowledge on the efficacy of gun control policies are due primarily to inadequate data and not to weak research methods. The result of the scarcity of relevant data is that gun control is one of the most fraught topics in American politics and scholars remain deadlocked on a variety of issues. Notably, since 1996 the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been prohibited from using its federal funding "to advocate or promote gun control," effectively ending gun violence research at the agency. The funding provision's author has said that this was an
It’s undeniably aggravating and sorrowful that this constantly occurs, and that President Obama’s constantly getting push back by the NRA and Congress. The idea that those against gun control continue to argue that more guns will make us safer when, in actuality, that just adds more guns to the equation. At the same time, he speaks to gun owners in a way to not make them feel like he’s patronizing to them, but suggesting that the NRA perhaps is not speaking with their interests in mind. Yet, the most pressing notion of this article is President Obama continues a message of change throughout his speech. That, while the NRA and Congress continue to not negotiate well with him, change will
Do crime and guns go hand in hand? This is a question many citizens and lawmakers have been asking themselves over the past decade. The modern discussion over gun control has become a hot topic in both the social, and political arena for years. In particular, events such as Columbine, Sadie Hook, and Virginia Tech, are ruling the social pressure for political gun reform. Gun control is something that this country must take action towards in order to reduce the amount of deaths per year. The constant shootings and fatalities need to come to an end as quickly as possible, and the best way to make that theory an actuality is to pass new gun reform legislation in hopes to reduce these staggering statistics.
The gun control controversy has been going on for many years now in the United States. Gun control is an action that would make it harder for people to obtain a gun. President Obama read a speech on gun control, which was given and published on January 16, 2013 at the White House in Washington DC. He delivered the speech after the shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twelve adults were killed in Colorado, 20 children and six adults were killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School.
In the past week, between an emotional speech at the White House and a town hall on CNN, President Obama laid the groundwork for new executive action on gun violence. Accusing congressional Republicans of blocking gun reforms, Obama told those gathered in the East Room that something had to be done. "Until we have the Congress that's in line with the majority of Americans," he said, "there are actions within my legal authority that we can take to help reduce gun violence and save more lives."
Both supporters and opponents of gun control agree that some means should be found to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Not surprisingly, the two sides approach the issue differently. The two different strategies for gun control involve “deterrence” (discouraging by instilling fear) and “ interdiction” (legally forbidding the use of) Advocates of deterrence, most notably the Second Amendment Foundation and the NRA, recommend consistent enforcement of current laws and instituting tougher penalties to discourage individuals from using firearms in cr...
The recent gun shooting in Florida has pushed the movement on gun control ad gun laws. The students of the high school in Parkland, Florida have augmented their voice to get stricter gun control laws and fight the NRA. The cause of more gun control is justified, lives have been lost and not everyone should have gun. In our country, with such a large population, there is more possibilities of an outbreak of a mentally unstable person. This larger chance of any type of public shooting should be cause enough for the government to take action on the situation. Not only does gun violence affect the public, gun violence also affects the government “According to the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), in 2010, gun violence cost each
President Obama in 2013 was proposing stricter gun laws. “His plan includes universal background checks for gun sales, the reinstatement and strengthening of the assault weapons ban, limiting ammunition magazines to a 10-round capacity, and other measures” (Eichenwald, 2015). This shows that there is still a concern about firearms and how much access the public has to these weapons.
In the simplest form, crime is an illegal action which the societies do not support and government punishes for. Crimes and the criminal justice system are witnessed by society every evening newscast, and in every newspaper. The answer to crime seems to be more punishment, more security and, of course, more prisons. To deal with crime, the best way is imprisonment because prisons have many missions such as; punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation and also do a lot to solve the crime problems by using these missions. Therefore, to keep criminals away from society, prisons serve an essential role.