During the night of the You Gotta Be A Dope fraternity party, there were many laws, which were broken, that stemmed from the unknowing intoxication of the guests of the party, while the fraternity brothers knowing concealed alcohol in the beverages. Serving alcohol in this manner goes against several laws of the New York Penal Code. The first law is endangering the welfare of a child. As many guests were under the age of seventeen and the penal code 260.10 states “a person is guilty of endangering the welfare of a child when: 1. He knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less then seventeen years old.” Serving alcohol to minors puts them at physical and moral risk. Also by serving alcohol to minors the fraternity brothers Unlawfully dealt with a child in the first degree as paragraph two of penal code 260.20 states “A person is guilty of unlawfully dealing with a child when…he gives or sells or causes to be given or sold any alcoholic beverage…to a person less then twenty-one years old.” They are also if nothing less morally culpable for the many unlawful acts of the night because they intoxicated many and did not inform them of the alcohol. The first crime, which was a result of the intoxication, was the rape in the second degree of David Jeffery by Mary Mondoona. Statute 130.30 paragraph two states a person is guilty of rape in the second degree if “he or she engages in sexual intercourse with a person who is incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled or mentally incapacitated.” Being that they were both under the age of seventeen and over that age of thirteen, Mary being sixteen, and David being only one day from the age of 16, rape charges d... ... middle of paper ... ...ng sober. The final act in question in terms of legality, of the night, is Jeremy Derek’s sever injuring of three students with an automatic firearm during a marksmanship demonstration. It could be said that this is assault in the second degree because of reckless acts that lead to sever injury with a deadly weapon. The issue with this conviction is that he was unaware that the firearm was automatic, and fully expected and believed it was a marksmen’s rifle. This again shows Jeremy did not have intent or Mens Rea to injure people. Staples v. United States is a good precedent to show that the type of gun that the owner believes he owns is enough to prevent conviction by the law due to a gun being illegal. Jeremy can also claim the firearms dealer mislabeled and false advertised the gun, and that if he was sold the proper gun, he would not have injured anyone.
...rict of Columbia vs Heller The Supreme Court striked down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and ruled that “the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,” and that the amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment.” In Beard v. U.S. (1895), the court approved the common-law rule that a person “may repel force by force” in self-defense, and that, when attacked, a person “was entitled to stand his ground and meet any attack made upon him with a deadly weapon,” as needed to prevent “great bodily injury or death(NRA).”
With many recent incidents that involve guns between 2012 and 2013, gun control laws have become a hot topic in America. On one hand, after the horrific incident like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting at Newtown in 2012, most people wanting to limit guns from getting into the wrong by setting up a rigorous system that control who can and cannot obtain a gun. On the other hand, we have the people who believe that with such rigorous system in place is violated the individual rights that granted and protected by the United States Constitution. They believe that the rigorous system will prevent people from defending themselves and could be a violation of their privacy. Regardless of which side is right, if we want to understand more about our current conflict, we have to look back on how this hold debate started. The District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court case in 2008 that found the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 unconstitutional, which influence the individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense by questioning the Second Amendment and laws that restrict a person from acquire guns.
In 1976, the District of Columbia City Council enacted three of the strictest gun control ordinances in the United States. The ordinances entirely ban the possession of handguns within the District and, while allowing residents to keep rifles and shotguns in their homes, require those guns be kept disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. Then in 2003, Dick Heller and five other plaintiffs were recruited by lawyer, Robert Levy, and used to file suit against D.C. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the D.C. Gun Ban violated their Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms." The District Court found that the Second Amendment should not give an individual the right to gun ownership except where the individual is a member of an organized militia and granted the District's motion to dismiss. Heller and the other plaintiffs then appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals then questioned whether the plaintiffs could even challenge the Gun Ban because the requirement was that a plaintiff must have suffered an actual injury due. In D.C. simply wanting to keep a handgun at home I snot enough to challenge the law. The court found that only Heller had a viable case, because he suffered an actual injury when the District denied his application for a handgun permit. The court dismissed the others from the suit because the ban had not actually impacted them yet. The Court of Appeals then considered whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms is an individual right or a right contingent on membership in a well-regulated militia. The court determined that when Congress passed the Bill of Rights, the term "militia" referred generally and broadly to the...
The author has made an insightful contribution to the grey areas of gun licensing that is part of a wider encompassing debate on gun control and violence. It is a well-researched piece that presents
The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but only in cases of self-defense and hunting for food. However, the use of guns has drastically changed since 1791 when the amendment was implemented. Today, guns are not solely used in their intended ways. Since 2010, over eighty-seven school shootings have occurred within American grade schools, high schools, and universities, resulting in approximately 107 injuries and 109 murders of innocent students. The two most deadly shootings in the world occurred in the United States: the Virginia Tech University Massacre which left thirty-two dead and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which left twenty-eight dead. Each new shooting prompts a debate about gun control laws and leaves citizens wondering about the accessibility of guns; any United States citizen over the age of twenty-one that does not have any previous felonies is able to easily receive a gun license. Forty-nine out of the sixty-one school shootings that occurred between 1982 and 2012 legally obtained firearms. The statistics become even more outstanding: seventy nine percent of all shooters have been diagnosed with a mental illness or disability, including the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shooters, Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza. Cho and Lanza were diagnosed with mental illnesses and disabilities, depression and autism, respectively. Even so, they were still able to acquire the guns they needed because extensive mental health background checks did not and still do not exist; Cho purchased his own weapon and Lanza stole his mother’s guns. Although the case studies of Lanza and Cho are only two out of the many school shootings, they should be considered prime examples to illustrate the necessity to add stri...
Over the last decade or so, the United States of America has been shaken by an epidemic of terrifying mass shootings, devastating slayings of unexpecting victims, and unnerving annihilations of the innocent. There is no specific target, no explicitly sought-out group, nor definite individual. From a classroom of first-graders, to a crowded movie theatre, to a U.S. Naval yard, the location seems at most, random, other than that it is almost always a public place. The perpetrators responsible for these horrific murders also vary, and often surprise those who thought they knew them. However, while the occurrences of mass shootings are unpredictable and always shocking, most have one thing in common: the use, or rather misuse, of assault weapons-automatic or semiautomatic military style rifles. To ensure the safety, security, and well-being of the people of the United States, the government should ban assault weapons.
Willing, Richard. "Case Could Shape Future of Gun Control." Second Amendment Foundation Online. USA Today, 27 Aug. 1999. Web. 29 May 2010. .
Jacobs, James B., and Kimberly A. Potter. "Keeping Guns out of the ‘Wrong’ Hands: The Brady Law and the Limits of Regulation." The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 86.1 (1995): 93-120. Print.
One of the most important aspects of the debate centered on gun legislature is the distribution of illegal firearms to felons, criminals and American youth. Witemute’s article hints that there have been several illegal gun sales from unauthorized markets and to those under the legal ages of 18 or 21 depending on the type of firearm being sold. Unfortunately, these illegal sales have resulted in an increase in gun related injuries and deaths. (55)
Multitudes of facts about gun violence hinder the belief many have for keeping their weapons. One of the most logical and most disturbing facts is that shooting sprees are not rare in the United States. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii, and in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally” (Klein). As bluntl...
Assault weapons have been labeled as the number one source for mass killings in America. The idea that a weapon can fire a large amount of bullets at a remarkable speed can be used for recreational use was thought of otherwise. This type of weaponry was made for one reason and that is to eliminate as many people as possible and accomplish it in a reasonably fast time. The problem is everywhere and to help control the issue the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to enacting and enforcing gun...
...ns in the United States: Firearms, Armed Violence and Gun Law." Guns in the United States: Firearms, Armed Violence and Gun Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.
The 2nd amendment “The Right to Bear Arms” has not been brought up to date in over 200 hundred years and it is time that we make the necessary adjustments. Handguns and assault weapons are to blame for many mass killings in America. Each year, more than 30,000 people die in the United States in firearm-related incidents. Handguns and semi automatic weapons have been used in these massacres. The choice of rules such as exercising the right to further background checks and limit the availability of automatic weapons should be the first and foremost concern of both federal and state legislators.
Gun violence in America is a public health crisis, which needs to be recognized and changed by legislatures, and the voting American. As conscious Americans, we need to vote for changes to gun laws that would improve background checks nation-wide, make firearm registration mandatory, restrict the sale of assault weapons and weapon modifications that give the shooter military-grade fire power, and invest in gun-safe technology and safe firearms storage designs. This type of technology will help prevent criminally oriented people from accessing guns, and will help prevent the accidental deaths of many children by guns. This essay will explain the reforms needed to help ensure Americans can still exercise their 2nd amendment right of owning firearms, and preventing the unnecessary deaths of many Americans at the same time.
Alpers, Philip and Marcus Wilson. 2013. Guns in the United States: Facts, Figures and Firearm Law. Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. GunPolicy.org, 14 March.10 April 2013.http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states