Should Assault Weapons Be Banned Essay

The second amendment states “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.” This means that citizens have a right to bear arms, but since this amendment is not very clear there is some controversy. Many people argue that there shouldn’t be assault weapons because they are too powerful, or that this amendment was not intended to allow high powered assault weapons. There are many reasons on why assault rifles and large magazines should not be banned in the United States, including protection, defense, and past bans have not been effective.

Assault weapons give citizens the feeling of protection. Citizens use assault weapons to protect themselves

because they do hold more rounds than a regular rifle. Many citizens like it because if a person did break into their house they would not have to waste valuable moments to reload after every shot or every other shot. Those moments of reloading could be the difference between life and death for one family.

Citizens having assault weapons gives them defense. Without assault weapons how would citizens defend against people meaning harm? Assault weapons help citizens protect their family and their home against intruders(Nappen). If intruders came into their home and all the family had for defense was a rifle, there’s two shots. After that, what? What if they miss? Having an assault weapon also can help the family protect businesses and other possessions that that family might have.

Past bans have not been very effective. There are still regular occurrences of shootings and still will be even after the ban has been placed. Murders will still happen after a ban anyway. Just because there is a law won’t stop people from breaking it. One example is when they banned assault rifles and large magazines in California in 1989 and the murder rate increased every year 26% over 5 years. Another example is in 2003, which was the last full year of a ban, crime rate had increased to 5.7% per 100,000 people. In 2011 it had fallen back down to 4.7% per 100,000 people. In another statistic, it says that in murders involving shooting assault weapons is at 26% where as handguns is at 47.9%(Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Is Not the Answer).

Although there are many reasons why there should not be bans against assault rifles there are still anti-gun people that will be against it.

They say more murders will be committed, but the gun rate is the highest it has ever been in 1991 and since then in 2012 murder rate has decreased to 49%, a 52% drop(Ten Reasons Why States Should Reject “Assault Rifle” and “Large” Magazine Bans). Statistics say that even though bans are put in place to reduce crime it doesn’t. In another article it states that California banned assault rifles in 1989 and the murder rate increased every year and over the course of five years it increased 26%. Two-thirds of the murders today committed with firearms, but of those two-thirds, 69% are committed with handguns not rifles(Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Is Not the Answer).

There are many reasons on why assault rifles and large magazines should not be banned in the United States, including protection, defense, past bans have proved many things. Many people would say no to keeping assault rifles legal, but those are just a few of the reasons why we should say yes to keeping assault weapons legal. But statistics have showed that past bans do not work. Plus having assault weapons defense and protection for when they need it most. We should not ban assault

weapons.