Gun Control In America Pros And Cons

The Debate That Never Ends: Gun Control in America

The rush of adrenaline a person receives the first time they fire a handgun is unlike anything else, the feeling of power and exhilaration that hits a person can be addicting. Guns are impressive weapons with positive and negative qualities. They can create mass destruction and ruin in seconds, they can also cause intense fighting with the mere mention of them to the wrong person or group. However, they also can save lives, provide protection of others, and are a source of self defence.

Congress stopped passing gun laws shortly after the 1994 legislation, this is a factor into why the US. is currently in an intensive debate on gun control, some think the laws are too tight and others believe they are not tight enough. A key part in this debate is in the amount of guns available to the public, some people like Wayne Lapierre, National Rifle Association executive director, believe we need more guns accessible to the public. Along with that is the availability of guns to the public, Meghan Rosen, a writer for science news magazine and author of “MISFIRES in the Gun Control Debate”, believes that it is too easy to gain

ownership of a gun. The debate over requiring background checks before buying a gun is a part of this controversy, along with that is the other key part of the gun debate: the amount of gun deaths in America. Some authors like Carrie Arnold, writer for the New Scientist, believes that mental instabilities of men and women are a key factor in the increasing gun deaths. Each of these points have varying influences on the great gun control in America debate.
The debate of gun laws in America is a heated one, some organizations like the NRA think that America could do without gun laws; and other public figures believe America needs tighter gun laws. Leah Libresco, a writer for the Washington Post and author of “I Used to Think Gun Control was the Answer. My Research Told Me Otherwise”, believed America needed tighter gun laws until she and her team started to research gun laws. It was then that Libresco discovered and decided that America does not need tighter gun laws, but reforms specific to gun related issues; focusing on a range of tactics to protect various possible gun violence victims would save more lives then gun laws. Be that as it may, Wayne Lapierre’s opinion is that the best reform of gun violence is to put guns into the hands of the people, he believes, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” ( Hallman). In making this comment Lapierre is suggesting that the only gun laws america needs is one that will put a gun in the hand of the people. However, Gregory Orfalea, writer of “Self-Inflicted Carnage”, author for the commonweal, and college writing professor, believes that congress is not being serious enough about gun laws, he believes that if gun laws were tighter it would make this country safer, as would a decrease in gun manufacturing. Carrie Arnold agrees with the other authors belief that gun laws need to be tighter. In her article “DIY Gun Control” she discusses the enactment of gun laws, or rather the lack thereof, stating that the current gun legislation is expanding gun rights rather than restricting them. In speaking about gun manufacturing laws she stated, “ Without gun laws there’s not much chance of manufacturers voluntarily adding extra safety features” (Arnold). What Arnold is saying is that without a movement for increased gun laws by congress, gun manufacturers will not go out of their way to increase the safety of automatic weapons. In short, gun laws are either going to increase safety in America, or they won’t.
Another one of the key arguments in the gun control debate is the amount of guns in America, many sources say that there are too many guns in America. Nation, one of the oldest continually publishing magazines that provides a wide range of opinions and analysis on political and cultural news, released an article, “Act Up for Gun Control”, that agrees with the common idea that there are too many guns. In their article, the writers made the statement, “America has virtually as many guns as people”. In other words the authors at Nation believe that America has so many guns that it equals the number of people in America. To many people that is a concerning fact, and one they want changed. The problem, however, is that there is not one clear solution to the issue because gun activists are not going to freely give up their guns and the government can not force them to.
Gregory Orfalea expressed his similar beliefs on the issue when he discussed guns in the home. Majority of gun owners keep their guns in their home as a source of protection, however, Orfalea believes that the chance of a gun protecting someone in the case of an intruder is a small one, more than likely the intruder would end up using the gun on the owner. Wayne Lapierre, however, believes the opposite. He thinks that there is not enough guns in the country, because the only way someone is safe is if they have a way to protect themselves, the more guns in the hands of Americans is safer America is. Ben Hallman, a senior editor for projects and investigations at the Huffington Post and Author of “Here Is Why the NRA Is Winning the Gun Control Argument”, refutes Lapierre’s opinion by claiming that the NRA is using a false reality of fear to promote more guns in society. No matter what reality a person is living in, the fact is that there is a lot of guns, however, if that number is too high or too low is for the public to decide.
Along with the amount of guns, the topic of how easy they are to access is a widely recognized part of the gun control debate.

Philip Elliott and Sam Frizell co writers of the article “The New Politics of Gun Control” published in Time magazine, believe that the easy access is good because everyone has the right to own a gun. They believe that owning a gun is a constitutional right, that having been said, they also think that every constitutional right has a certain set of boundaries on it. In other words, America has the right to have easy access to guns, but that access should have boundaries on it. Boundaries such as background checks that would prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands, or gun safety education that would help gun owners be smart about using a storing their

weapons.
Meghan Rosen compared buying a gun in Connecticut, a state with stricter gun laws, to buying a gun in Missouri, a state with light gun laws. She discovered that in Connecticut it takes an application, an eight hour safety course, a background check, fingerprinting, to obtain a permit to purchase a gun, the whole process takes about eight weeks. In Missouri, a person can walk in, fill out paperwork, and walk out with a gun, all in about fifteen minutes. Rosen then looked at previous data and discovered that after implementing stricter gun laws in connecticut the percentage of gun deaths went down by fifteen percent and in Missouri they went up by sixteen percent. Carrie Arnold’s research correlates with Rosen’s in that Arnold believes that there is a direct correlation between the easy access of gun and the number of gun deaths in America. She believes that if it was not so easy to buy a gun, then the number of mass shootings and gun suicides would decrease. She also surmises that because of the easy gun access it allows citizens to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes that can help a dangerous situation, other times it could cause greater destruction, as is the basic case with guns in general.
The topic of gun deaths is quite possibly the most debated topic when gun control is brought up. There is a good reason for it being so popular. In the year 2017 alone, over five-hundred people were killed in mass shootings and two thirds of total gun deaths were suicides. The Las Vegas shooting, a mass shooting at a country music festival on the night of October first resulting in fifty eight people losing their lives, was the three-hundred and seventh mass shooting to take place in America in 2017 alone. Ben Hallman found that those who own guns are four times more likely to be involved in a gun related accident then those who do not own guns. Hallman believes that this fact is a direct relation to the easy access of guns.
Arnold believes that if it was harder for a suicidal person to get a gun, it might cause them to stop and think and that might just save their life. Arnold also discusses the Gun Shop Project, a movement to educate gun shop owners in recognizing the signs of a suicidal person. If a gun shop owner could recognise the signs and stop the sale it might save the person in question life considering that most suicides are planned about 10 minutes before they happen, one person stepping in could be enough to stop it. In one week a gun shop sold three guns to three different people who all took their own life, if that gun shop had stopped the sales, those people might still be alive. Arnold also brought up the idea of the recently introduced type of gun called a Smart Gun, they can only be operated in certain places and at certain times in an effort to reduce gun deaths particularly
Gregory Orfalea shared his story of the day his sister took the life of their father and then took her own life shortly after. He says that she was “unhinged” and in a moment of desperation, confusion, and hurt she took two lives and changed the rest of her family’s life forever. Orfalea does not blame his sister for what she did, however, he does blame the shop that allowed her to purchase a gun when she was clearly in a state of mind that was unhealthy.
The mental state of a person is also a factor in the gun control debate; and its one closely related to gun deaths. The truth of this matter is that mental illnesses are not always going to show up on a background check, or in the system in general. A person with a mental illness can still operate an automatic weapon. Mentally ill people are not violent by nature, for the most part they are regular human beings. The problem is when those people with mental illness allow themselves to become unstable, that is when mass shootings and suicides happen. Sometimes mass shootings and gun deaths happen because of hate of another race or community or as a cry for help from a mentally disconnected individual, and they happen as a result of terrorist affiliations. The reality of this topic is that there is no clear solution to it because mental illnesses can not just be stopped, people can always blame their actions on their mental illness whether its correlated to it or not.
The conclusion of this debate is not a black and white one. There are copious amounts of opinions and factors that play into this wide debate such as the amount of guns. Authors like Wayne LaPierre want more and others want less. Those like Leah Libresco who believe gun laws themselves need some sort of attention are a factor of the debate. The easy access to guns as Meghan Rosen explained in comparing buying a gun in two different states play a part in the debate. Carrie Arnold and Gregory Orfalea’s points on the amount of gun deaths and the mental instabilities that can go along with gun deaths point out big factors in the gun control controversy.
Because of the various and unmoving views on gun control, there will never be one clear answer to gun control debate. Those who do not want guns have no way or right to take guns from those who do, and no matter what laws are passed or not passed, enforcing those across all fifty states in the nation would be a near impossible feat. As it is with most political debates there is no happy ending, and with this debate in particular there is a very high possibility that there is not a real ending period. The reality of this controversy is that no matter what happens in this debate it will not please everyone.