The discussion regarding the second amendment and gun control in the United States has been a controversial and highly debated topic for many years. However, with the several school shootings taking place, the discussion about gun controls has been taken to a new level. The purpose of this essay is to give an overview of the debate and answer to the main question ”how is the relationship between freedom and rights expressed in the debate about strengthened gun control, in relation to positive and negative liberty, and over time? In order to achieve the purpose, three different kinds of analyzes have been made. First, two pro-contra analyzes were made on two different occasions. Next, the arguments found was examined through two concepts of liberty: positive and negative liberty. Lastly, a comparison was made between the arguments from the two different occasions. The results show that there are three different core issues in the debate, and that positive liberty is dominating the pro-gun control side, while negative liberty and individual rights are dominating the contra-gun control side. The debate has not been going through a radical change. However, some arguments have grown stronger over the years.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-65529 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Tonentschuk, Matilda |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för statsvetenskap (ST) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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