According to the New York Times article, “Oklahomans Packing Heat”, on
November 1st, Oklahoma’s 142,000 citizens with concealed handgun
licenses will have the right to wear their loaded guns in the open. Republican
Gov. Mary Fallin signed the “open carry” law although law enforcement objected
to it. Statehouse advocates advise that in order to obtain a handgun license, a
person has to pass a strict state check of criminal and mental health records. Obviously
Oklahoma is clearly inattentive with inaccurate numbers of fewer than four
cases being reported last year to the federal mental health watchlist. The state
is the 15th of states legalizing open carry with the notion that this
law will enhance public safety. Business owners are deciding on whether to
allow unconcealed guns on their premises or whether to put a “no guns allowed”
sign in respect for their family oriented customers. The law prohibits the
strapping on of a gun if a person is intoxicated. Different states within the
U.S. have varying gun control laws. It is estimated that civilians in the U.S.
own approximately 260 to 300 million firearms. A Gallup polls reflects that since
1990 laws supporting stricter gun laws have declined even though the FBI attributes
two-thirds of the homicides to be gun related. There has been much debate on
how gun control should be handled. Other countries have different viewpoints on
how they handle gun control. In Australia, gun ownership is strictly prohibited
unless used for a licensed sport, animal control, or for employment
requirements. According to guncontrol.org.au, Australia’s strict gun laws have
saved thousands of lives and are revealed through the results of a 2009 study showing
only 0.1 per 100,000 of the population deaths were due to firearm homicide and
0.8 per 100,000 deaths per firearm suicide. Brazil allows its citizens over 24
to own registered guns and restricts them to be kept indoors however; Brazil has
the second-highest gun-related deaths following the U.S. Government policies and
restrictions on gun control effects society. An article on Heraldnet.com shared doctor’s views
on how they believe that guns should be treated as a social problem. They claim
that we need to take a public health and science-based pragmatic approach to
the problem of society being inundated with guns and seek better ways of
preventing harm from them. Doctors compared the need for this approach as we
did the public health approach of highway safety measures, product changes, and
driving laws that contributed to reduced deaths. One public health
approach would be to examine “product features” by looking at which firearms
are the most dangerous and why. The doctors stated that manufacturers could be
forced to fix defects which allow a gun to go off accidently and incorporate
technology that allows only the owner of the gun to fire it. For the safety of
society these product restrictions are something that government should look
into especially when allowing open carry laws where there is opportunity for
guns going off accidentally in the public.
A version of this editorial appeared
in print on November 3, 2012, on page A22 of the New York edition with the
headline: Oklahomans Packing Heat.
No comments:
Post a Comment