U.S. National Government Authority in Regulation of Guns

In the year 2013, the U.S National Government executive branch announced a plan for cutting down the rising incidents of gun violence. This was in response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and other previous mass shootings. This plan had also proposed new laws that required to be passed by the Congress as well as actions that did not require the approval of the Congress. Since then, no new legislations have been passed from the proposals. The question is. Does the legislature have enough authority to pass new laws or can the Federal Courts use the present laws in regulating the use of guns?

An argument based on an individual’s fundamental rights shows that the government authority to regulate guns is restricted to a certain degree. Over a long time, the Supreme Court has been consistently involved in upholding the individual right to own arms. For instance, the fundamental right to own a gun was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller case. The court had the view that an individual’s right to possess guns was listed in 1989 under English Bill of rights as one of Englishmen’s fundamental rights.

Moreover, the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution can be considered to protect this fundamental right to own a gun. It clearly states that, to maintain security in a free state it is necessary to have a militia with certain restrictions and there should be no infringement on the people’s right to possess arms. The phrase that states “the people” in the amendment can be taken to apply to all persons.  This also indicates that a few powers are delegated to the Federal government in reducing gun rights.

Currently, nothing in the common law supports a total ban on possession of specific weapons. This is as long as a person is of the right mind and is a law-abiding citizen. The government may look up to the Commerce Clause to provide it with constitutional authority to propose and pass gun control laws. However, the Clause is not in any way related to the purchase and sale of guns and is not applicable to the government gun control efforts.

Although, the government is very much willing to enact gun control laws that will help in controlling the use of guns, the big question is whether the constitution supports these efforts. The source of their authority is questionable, and thus, the government authority to reduce gun violence is restricted.

Critique on commentary ‘Texas illegally cuts Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid reimbursements’

Audience being addressed by the blogger is Texas health and Human Services Commission. This is due to an action take by this commission, on terminating Planned Parenthood clinics enrollment (Green 2015). It is stated that, these clinics were no longer capable of conducting medical services in safe, ethical, legal and professional manner.

Planned Parenthood offers numerous services ranging from abortive services along with fetal tissue research. Despite being under no duty to offer abortive services, Planned Parenthood proclaimed that it would give up receiving reimbursements, based on fetal tissue research. It is claimed that, evidences brought against Planned Parenthood was obscenely manipulative, in order to make the firm appear as an evil factory (Green 2015). It is also perceived that, those evidences against Parenthood clinics would make their opponents appear as caring much about continued existence of Planned Parenthood, and not much about fetal tissue research merits. Furthermore, debates about how ethical are fetal tissue research and whether abortion ought to be banned was not enough reason to have congress debate. This is because, this kind of debate required to be different or unusual enough for anti-choice activists to win.

I agree that terminating the services of Planned Parenthood clinics was illegal. This is because, firstly, Texas did not perform investigation on parenthood’s practices, and thus, did have to stop executing Parenthood programs without any cause. This was also similar case that happened when Louisiana attempted to terminated Planned Parenthood payments, but did not succeed as federal judge ordered them to continue with payments until court placed a conclusion. Moreover, Texas State Health service department refusing to provide birth certificates to immigrant children is causing a bad week to reproductive rights in Texas.

Critique of an Editorial on US Government

The critiques are about an article published in New York Times on 30th September 2015 titled Spending Bill Passes, Averting a Shutdown by David M. Herszenhorn on 30th September 2015. Herszenhorn is a renowned news reporter and an editor at New York Times. Herszenhorn started his media career in the early 1990s and over the years, he has become one of the key political news reporters and editors in the US. Given his experience in reputable news agency, Herszenhorn can be perceived as a credible author. The main target audience for the article are the American citizens.

According to the article, Congress approved a temporary Spending Bill in the last minutes of the fiscal year. The Bill aimed at increasing government spending to help federal agencies to continue running efficiently. According to Herszenhorn, the approval of the Spending Bill was due to strong support by Democrats in the House. He indicates that Democrats have been using the tyranny of numbers to force policy changes in the government. According to the House vote, the bill was approved by 257 members against 151 members. Out of 257 votes in favor of the bill, 186 votes were Democrats while 91 were Republicans. All members against the bill were Republicans. This indicates that the Democrats are using the majority power to impose some policies.

Herszenhorn argues that the Democrats support for the bill to increase government spending has increased the battle between Republican and Democrats. The evidence to support his argument are statements made by Mr. McConnell on how Democrats in the Congress for blocking all efforts to implement regular spending bills. Mr. McConnell indicates that Democrats are against all fiscal measures proposed by Republicans such as increasing government spending. Herszenhorn indicates that Democrats have blocked all spending bills that were proposed by Republican and approved by appropriation committees. The strong battle between Democrats and Republican has forced Republican speaker, Mr. Boehner, to express his intention to resign from office. Herszenhorn also indicates that the increased government spending will have a significant effect to the US. He indicates that the country federal debt has continued to escalate and the US can lose it ability to pay.

In my opinion, I agree with Herszenhorn opinion that Democrats are using majority leadership to pass major government policies. Republican have remained powerless since most of their proposed bills especially on fiscal measures have been blocked in the Congress. Nevertheless, approval of spending bill is likely to help the government to accomplish most of their missions such as heightening the security and infrastructure development.