The future of the 2nd Amendment
By Joshua Roberts
The assassination of Charlie Kirk in the United States has once again brought the debate around the 2nd Amendment to the forefront of public discourse. The exact wording of the 2nd Amendment is, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”; in short, it gives American citizens the right to own guns.
While the debate could focus on whether the 2nd Amendment is necessary in modern society, this is a part of the constitution of the United States making repealing the 2nd Amendment a complex process which currently neither side of the political debate is advocating. Instead, the debate generally tends to focus on the extent to which “Arms” refers to every type of firearm. While some, like Charlie Kirk did, advocate for limited gun control arguing that “it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”, others would argue that gun control can be incredibly tightly controlled without contradicting the 2nd Amendment. Neither side is advocating for the undermining, rewriting, or contravention of the 2nd Amendment.
Therefore, the debate should center around what would be more beneficial for society. There is no doubt that the USA has a widespread gun violence problem, with a mass shooting almost daily there is clearly a serious issue that needs to be addressed. In addition, there is an emerging problem of political violence, with two attempted assassinations of President Trump during the last election campaign and the murder of Melissa Hortman and attempted murders of other Democrat politicians in Minnesota in June of this year. Not to mention the killing that has reignited this debate, that of Charlie Kirk in Utah. The general population faces the threat of death every day, politicians and political commentators risk their lives advocating for what they believe to be right; school children have armed guards at schools in an attempt to keep them safe, and the general populace always have the looming threat of mass shootings.
… the UK has a population around 10% of that of the USA, however while the UK has had 4 mass stabbings in 2025 so far, the USA had 34 mass shootings in September 2025 alone.
While it could be argued that the problem stems from mental health or political extremism, the United Kingdom has faced increased political violence too, just this year we have had a mass stabbing at a synagogue on October 2nd, and riots that have taken place outside migrant hotels. However, the major difference here is that these are rarer, they do not involve firearms and thus do not have large death tolls like in the USA.
Let me put this another way, the UK has a population around 10% of that of the USA, however while the UK has had 4 mass stabbings in 2025 so far, the USA had 34 mass shootings in September 2025 alone. This is not to make the case that knife crime is not a problem, it certainly is, but American gun violence is on a completely different level.
The other aspect of the American problem is the growing dichotomy within the USA with a clear problem of extremism on both the left and the right. And I would argue that the problem of political violence there will not calm down until this political chasm is addressed. However, if these extremist political actors did not have easy access to guns, then they would certainly be less dangerous.
Other countries have successfully restricted their gun control; Australia for example managed to remove 600,000 firearms after a mass shooting in the 1980s. Some might argue that the USA is a different culture and therefore it would not work in the same way, and they may be correct in that assessment but there is no doubt that a restrictive regime of gun control would reduce the problem of mass shootings. What would this restrictive form of gun control look like? Banning automatic or semi automatic firearms might be one step and this is one possibility being put forward by politicians in the USA. Only allowing bolt action or lever action rifles like those commonly used in hunting. However, as has been pointed out by many, this proposed restriction on guns, which Democrat politicians advocate, would not have prevented the death of Charlie Kirk, because the weapon used to assassinate him was an antique bolt action hunting rifle. So, whilst gun control might be one half of the solution to political and mass shootings in the USA it is not a complete fix, the other equally important focus should be to address political extremism on both the right and the left that drives people to consider murder as the right choice to make.
Image: Fibonacci Blue via Wikimedia Commons
