Gun control
In 2010 12,996 people were murdered. So that means we need to put a ban on assault rifles, to bring down the number of deaths. Actually only 358 were committed with a rifle.
People are always talking about how things would be better if we didn't have assault rifles with “big magazines”, according to theblaze.com, and Jason Howerton, There were more people murdered by hands, feet, and other body parts than assault rifles. In 2010 there were 745 people killed by hands or feet, yet people still think getting assault rifles off the street will solve our problem.
I read some comments on Jason Howertons article and people keep saying things like, “In mass shootings people generally use assault rifles”. Yes they do but have you noticed that most of the mass shooting are done by someone with a sort of mental illness. We wouldn't have that problem if at gun shops before every gun was sold they did a deep background check and a medical record check to see if that person was diagnosed with any sort of mental illness.
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You would think to kill and injure that many people you would need a fully automatic ak-47 or m16 or any other automatic weapon but you don't, Cho was armed with a 9-millimeter handgun, a 22-caliber handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. That just goes to prove that it's not just high powered automatic weapons causing all the destruction. Its the people with the guns that's the problem Cho later went on to take his own life but it just proves that the guns dont get up and shoot people the people with the guns are the problem. If you can kill almost 30 people with one 9-millimeter and one 22-millimeter handgun. putting a ban on assault rifles will not help
have shown the firearm homicide and suicide rates in the US are several times higher than that of any other industrialized country” (Towers 2). The automatic reaction people have to mass shooting is talking about gun control and mental illness policies. Every time a mass shooting occurs both the people and the government go crazy trying to find a solution yet there is no solution. The United States needs to set up mental illness awareness programs to decrease the number of mass shootings.
“Guns don’t kill people, people do.” This is a well known statement that is oftentimes considered true. However, it is not completely true. Someone who is mentally ill may be unable to make logical decisions and the perception they receive of reality may be tainted by the illness. Gun laws pertaining to those suffering mental illnesses should be more restrictive. Weapons such as guns make committing an act of violence, especially when there are multiple victims, much easier. It is difficult to assess the probability of a person to commit a violent act that harms anyone including himself/herself. Therefore, gun laws need be monitored very closely and made more consistent throughout each state in order to prevent violence that could occur in the future. To make any system effective, every state must have the same laws and regulations, as it is easy for a person to travel to a state more lenient on gun control and purchase a gun from a store that will sell firearms more openly.
The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but only in cases of self-defense and hunting for food. However, the use of guns has drastically changed since 1791 when the amendment was implemented. Today, guns are not solely used in their intended ways. Since 2010, over eighty-seven school shootings have occurred within American grade schools, high schools, and universities, resulting in approximately 107 injuries and 109 murders of innocent students. The two most deadly shootings in the world occurred in the United States: the Virginia Tech University Massacre which left thirty-two dead and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which left twenty-eight dead. Each new shooting prompts a debate about gun control laws and leaves citizens wondering about the accessibility of guns; any United States citizen over the age of twenty-one that does not have any previous felonies is able to easily receive a gun license. Forty-nine out of the sixty-one school shootings that occurred between 1982 and 2012 legally obtained firearms. The statistics become even more outstanding: seventy nine percent of all shooters have been diagnosed with a mental illness or disability, including the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shooters, Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza. Cho and Lanza were diagnosed with mental illnesses and disabilities, depression and autism, respectively. Even so, they were still able to acquire the guns they needed because extensive mental health background checks did not and still do not exist; Cho purchased his own weapon and Lanza stole his mother’s guns. Although the case studies of Lanza and Cho are only two out of the many school shootings, they should be considered prime examples to illustrate the necessity to add stri...
Enforcing an assault weapons ban can reduce the all-too-familiar occurrences of mass shooting and massacres. When Adam Lanza shot 26 people in Sandy Hook Elementary School..police say he largely relied upon a Bushmaster AR-15 "assault-type weapon," a semiautomatic rifle that could rapidly fire multiple high-velocity rounds. He was also equipped with magazines that held 30 bullets each (Plumer). As a chart from Princeton's Sam Wang shows, the number of people killed in mass shootings did go down in the years the [1994 Assault Weapons Ban] was in effect...and the number of mass shootings per year has doubled since the ban expired (Plumer). This statistic clearly shows the effectiveness of the ban passed by Congress and signed by former president Bill Clinton as part of the V...
As us Americans we are actually making the stereotype of we always carry guns around sound true to the rest of the world considering that, we are the “31% percent of all public mass shootings which at least four people are killed.” (TheWeek.com) But under a broader definition USA counted 346 mass shootings including shooting deaths of four or more victims in a 17- year period. The worst part about this information is this year we already have recorded 249 mass shootings in about 7 months close to the same amount USA counted over 17 years! This is a problem that must be solve for the safety in this country but also prevent more mass shooting from happening. “According to a Mother Jones study: Only 23 percent have been treated for mental illness.” ( Gallagher )
Imagine, a person is sitting in their classroom in college. He or she is focused on listening to the teacher, because he or she needs to pass the final exam in order to graduate. All of a sudden, an intruder charges through the door. The intruder pulls out a gun and starts blasting bullets throughout the classroom. There is nowhere to run and there is no way to fight back. Everyone is hit and on the floor, bleeding. This person is so close to graduating and starting a new life. Now his life has been cut short, because there was someone who illegally brought a gun to a school. Because the school had a symbol of “no guns allowed”. Because the intruder knew there was no one else could shoot back. Now imagine if that student, dying on the floor,
Over the past years media has been overwhelmed with news about mass shootings happening around America and if mental illness is the primary cause of the violent act. On February 2014, Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish published their article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms” in the American Journal of Public Health that addresses the issue that mental illness has very little to do mass shootings which is commonly used on the aftermath of the shooting
Regulation of guns is a necessary action that needs to be taken in order to
There is one reaction that is always to be expected after a mass shooting, and that is the call for an increase in control. This can be defined in numerous different ways, and can include a great deal of different aspects. People who call for an increase gun control in the wake of mass shootings are, in general, people who believe that more guns means more crimes. Gun control advocates cite studies that state, “Higher gun prevalence is associated with an increase in homicides, and suicides, and possibly even more residential burglaries” (Ludwig 17). Often times, after mass shootings, those in favor of more gun control look to countries like Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Japan, and their strict gun policy and cite this as the direction
As actor Vince Vaughn once said, “I support people having a gun in public full stop, not just in your home. We don 't have the right to bear arms because of burglars; we have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It 's not about duck hunting; it 's about the ability of the individual. It 's the same reason we have freedom of speech. It 's well known that the greatest defence against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back. All these gun shootings that have gone down in America since 1950, only one or maybe two have happened in non-gun-free zones. Take mass shootings. They 've only happened in places that don 't allow guns. These people are sick in the head and
“According to FBI statistics, 46, 313 Americans were murdered during the time period of 2007 to 2011. This translates to an average of 9,263 murders per year.” There was about one murder every hour. These murders involved guns. If gun control laws are enhanced then everyone would be safer. There would be less crime and no one would have to be as concerned. That would be a huge benefit to us all. According to JustFacts, “12% of Americans will be the victims of a complete violent crime in the course of their lives. 83% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed crime. 52% of Americans will be the victim of an attempted or completed crime more than once.” Obviously many Americans have been involved in a violent gun act. Many probably live in fear. Maybe someone suffers from trauma after an incident like this happened. People who commit these crimes do not even stay in prison for that long. Thus, this makes the United States a scarier
More and more frequently, we are saddened by the news of mass shootings. Whether it takes place in a school or public area, these shootings are both disastrous and mortifying. Families begin to feel anger and sadness, and demand immediate justice. Although these terrible events continue to happen, there have been no significant steps taken towards the reduction in the number of weapons; specifically assault rifles. This leads one to question do we need to ban the right to possess such weapons? If the possession of these weapons is not made illegal, we run the risk of another attack. While there is no questioning the severity of these mass shootings, a ban on assault rifles is not the answer because they are not the cause of such events, and it is a constitutional right to own them.
Guns have been the weapon of choice for some of the most brutal massacres on America soil. Since early history guns have been used mainly for militia and defense purposes. But, the development of new gun technology has made firearms more accessible and deadly. Although the second amendment gives the right to bear arms, guns should be controlled and monitored by the government because guns have contributed to a lot of killings in America and will increase crime rates.
“The more energy they have to gin up to execute their plan, the harder it will be to do so” (Newman). When “Would be shooters” are faced with a challenge they most likely don’t go through with their plan. The dedicated shooters are those who intend on finding guns and shooting people, those who have the drive. “Totally dedicated shooters” are the type of people who wont give up whether the guns are accessible to them legally or illegally. Dedicated shooters have a plan of action and intend on going through with it. These types of people likely suffer from mental illnesses. “The abnormally high level of school shootings in America is not solely a gun issue a mental health issue, or a media issue, but rather a problem caused by a combination of mental illness problems, social inequality, gun control policies, and the structure of schools”(Gupta, 2016). Structural inequalities in the United States cause stress, which lead people to turn to radical measures. Factors such as economic change, racism and social changes cause constraints on behavior. Mental health is also a leading factor to school shootings. “Metzl and MacLeish’s research shows that up to 60 percent of mass shootings in the United States since 1970 involved shooters displaying symptoms of mental illnesses—including paranoia, depression, and delusions—and the evidence suggests that
The problem with guns is fairly obvious: they decrease the difficulty of killing or injuring a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994), he points out the obvious dangers. About 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. Firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985, the cost of shootings was an estimated $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed.