Debate: Can Handguns Be Effectively Regulated?
posted by University of Pennsylvania Law Review
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Recent reports on crime statistics published by the FBI show that violent crime has increased for the second straight year across the nation. In particular, the FBI’s reports demonstrate that in major metropolitan areas, such as Philadelphia, homicides have increased by 6.7%.
In the midst of this upsurge in violent crime, Professors James B. Jacobs, of New York University, and David Kairys, of Temple University, reengage with America’s long-running debate over the effectiveness of gun (specifically handgun) control regulation, in their debate, Can Handguns Be Effectively Regulated?
Both Professor Jacobs and Professor Kairys agree that the debate on handgun control “at its core is [related to] a personal, cultural, and political identification of guns with personal self-worth . . . , freedom, liberty, and . . . God and country.” Whereas Professor Jacobs accepts this as a political reality and uses it as an anchor from which to engage in this discussion, Professor Kairys steadfastly disagrees: “The best hope for emerging from our disgraceful state of denial is to respectfully engage and challenge the cultural and political identification of guns with our nation’s highest ideals and the deadly legacy of that identification as it is currently conceived.”
As always, please click on the PENNumbra link to read previous Responses and Debates, or to check out pdfs of the Penn Law Review’s print edition articles.
October 24, 2007 at 2:30 am
Posted in: Law Rev (Penn), Law Rev Forum
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