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Gun control and its effects
Impact of strict gun laws essay
Impact of strict gun laws essay
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Gun are one of the most commonly used weapons, but what happens if one of the most dangerous weapons gets in the hands of an unstable 19 year old? On the morning of February 4, 2018 student Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and injured 14 others. It should not be this easy for a person to kill and injure this many students in such little time. Students all over the country have been protesting stricter gun laws. In the article “A New Generation Calls Gun Laws”, from the New Yorker use a student Sarah DeSouza as their key speaker. Sarah says that Major Stoneman Douglas was her neighboring school and that her school just sent a banner that said “we stand with you”. However for Sarah that just wasn’t enough. She had listened to the survivors of the shooting it had inspired her to do something to let the survivors that their voices are being heard. …show more content…
Even stores have become fed up with the loose laws and have taken to it into their own hands to do something about it, DICKS Sporting Goods have said that they are no longer carrying ar-15 assault rifles, large magazines, and are no longer selling a handgun to anyone under the age of 21 no matter the local law. The CEO of DICKS said to the New York Times that “We love these kids and their rallying cry ‘Enough is enough.’ It got to us.” Different stores from all over the country have decided to stop selling guns and card people if they want one. In the time of kids taking over and protesting guns and politicians ignoring them saying “it’s our constitutional right to bear arms” this is true, however; to many children they see the constitution as something that needs to have a better look taken at because it was written when only the white man had
As the generations of America’s youth continue to grow, so does the increase in violent crimes associated with each generation. Over the last decade, studies have shown that school shootings have increased by an astonishing 13%. Although this figure as a percentage does not seem like much, it makes one stop and think. Parents blame the video games and their violent behaviors for the influence on their children’s daily lives. Grandparents blame the child’s parents for not showing them the right way to grow up in the world. And then we have that child’s friends who say that this child just was not respected by their classmates, or perhaps even bullied into this violent nature. Regardless of the cause to this violent increase, many Americans do believe in a solution: gun control. Gun control is the situation in which the federal government would put a ban on owning firearms. Contrary to what many “hard-core” Americans believe, gun control would not necessarily ban them from owning hunting rifles or even personal handguns. It would simply limit the ownership of semi-automatic assault rifles, and other rifles of this nature. This does not contradict the Second Amendment of the Constitution which states that American citizens have the Right to Bear Arms. I believe in the constitutional Right to Bear Arms, and I am against any attempt to eradicate that right for any American citizen: however, I am for gun control in the sense of lowering the possession of semi-automatic and fully-automatic rifles.
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...
“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” is stated in the United States Constitution as the Second Amendment. Several Americans wish to rid of guns from citizens, disobeying and disrespecting the Constitution. I shot my first gun when I was young and have always been surrounded by them. My neighbor does not leave the house without carrying one, nor does my eighteen year old friend. Never once have I felt unsafe or uneasy knowing that there was a gun close to me. The right to bare arms has become a popular local battle in which some people want to reduce the freedom of one owning firearms while others wish for the
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,
Meanwhile, in the US, 27 people, including 20 first graders, were shot and killed in December 2013 in the Sandy Hook massacre and we are yet to see any laws designed to prevent another tragedy like it. There have been talks of new restrictions but nothing on the federal level has been done yet. If the death of 20 innocent children was not enough to fight for gun control and to take a stand, what will? Australia was able to enforce stricter laws without taking away the right to possess a
In The United States of America there are lots of problems that are plaguing our nation. Gun Control is a problem that there is lots of controversy over. This is a problem that had a fire reignited under it when on December 14, 2012 a school in Connecticut was attacked. Many legislative bills have been introduced since then. (Focus of U.S Gun Control Shifts to States Year after Newtown Shooting) There are lots of issues that we have in our community with Gun Control that we have controversy over: background checks, age, classes, military guns, pistols, shotguns, and rifles. All of these things are apart of the plague in our Nation.
The debate over firearms has been polarized for too long. Gun law is a never-ending issue because there hardly is any true debate. Americans (and even gun owners) do support the governments efforts to make sure guns are less dangerous in violent hands, but that is the main problem-the guns getting in the wrong human hands. Millions of law-abiding Americans do own and do enjoy their guns. But criminals and sometimes-disconcerted kids often use firearms to kill. The use of firearms has increased tremendously. An average day in Los Angeles is four people dying in a gun related crime and the United States faces approximately 87 deaths a day. There are more than 200 million guns in circulation in the United States and if you don’t own a firearm, chances are that your neighbor or friend does (Fineman 27). Sure, the Founding Fathers incorporated the Second Amendment as “the right to keep and bear arms,” but it did not give the distinction of using guns to kill more children and people than anywhere in the world.
“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.” The right of all Americans to bear arms is a right the Founding Fathers held to equal importance as the Constitution itself. Gun control laws directly violate this right and therefore should not even be under consideration. Even if that issue is overlooked, gun control advocates state that in order to reduce firearm related violence, gun control laws must be implemented to remove the violence caused by firearms. Although this may seem reasonable, the consequences of such laws are ironically counterproductive; they exacerbate the problem instead of fixing it. Besides the fact that the American Constitution guarantees its citizens the right to bear arms, the idea of restricting gun ownership in order to reduce firearm-related violence would ultimately fail given the previous experiments of gun control in England and in numerous states.
People have questioned gun control long time. Many people wonder if anyone, aside from those who join the law force, should be allowed to carry guns. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” (Wright 4). Franklin understood that taking guns away from law-abiding citizens would not uphold their liberty. Some people who argue for gun control state many violent crimes involve guns. Others believe a child could find the gun and something bad could happen to the child or others when a gun is unsafely stored. People who argue against gun control might say there is a huge psychological gap between citizens who shoot to protect themselves or their property and those who go into schools and shoot at others. Criminals will always find a way around gun control laws and will be able to obtain and use guns illegally. The second amendment protects gun rights for individual citizens. Reasonable gun control laws and educational steps can be taken to protect the majority of U.S. citizens. Gun control does not only take guns away from criminals, gun control also limits law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves and their families when necessary.
Over the past few years there have been many incidents when children bring guns to school and shoot their fellow classmate(s) and/or teacher(s). The most recent and probably most tragic happened in 1998 at Colombine High School in Colorado when a group of students entered the school and murdered several students and a teacher. The first thing that everyone wondered once they finally heard the news is how the children got the guns? Supporters of gun control believe that if there were harsher gun laws, a lot of the school shootings would have never taken plac...
School shootings have altered American history greatly over the past two decades. From 1997 to 2007, there have been more than 40 school shootings, resulting in over 70 deaths and many more injuries. School shoot-outs have been increasing in number dramatically in the past 20 years. There are no boundaries as to how old the child would be, or how many people they may kill or injure. At Mount Morris Township, Michigan, on February 29th, 2000, there was a 6 year old boy who shot and killed another 6 year old girl at the Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber pistol. And although many shootings have occurred at High Schools or Middle Schools, having more guns on those campuses would not be a good environment for children to grow up in. However, on a college campus, the pupils attending are not children anymore; the age range is from 17 to mid 20’s. Therefore they understand the consequences associated to the use of weapons and have gained more maturity. In April 16th, 2007, at Blacksburg, Virginia, there was a shooting rampage enacted by Sung-Hui Cho (23 years, from Centreville, VA) who fired over 170 rounds, killing 32 victims, before taking his own life at the Virginia Tech campus. Colleges and Universities would be a much safer place, for student and teacher, if guns were permitted on campus for self-defense purposes.
Today in the United States many people argue over the fact of guns being legal or illegal. There are people using guns for personal safety and there are others who use them for crimes, as well as for other situations. Firearm deaths in the United States have slowly been decreasing from year to year with all these bills getting passed to promote a safer country than ever before. Guns are the main weapon for youth suicide, school shootings, and for committing murder. In 2010 there were 2,711 infants, child, and teenage firearm deaths. As in school shootings and in committing murder, studies show shooters often had multiple, non-automatic guns, shootings were planned, most youth tell before shooting, shooters have a history of being bullied or threatened, shooters have mental issues, and shooters have done suicidal gestures before (Gun Control with School Shootings). Although there are people who use guns for murdering, there are also those who oppose guns being used without the proper requirements. 85% of all respondents to the survey supporting requiring states to report people to national background-checks systems who are prohibited from owning gu...
Are you willing to sit back and become a victim of violent crime or allow the government to tamper with your civil liberties? In recent years, anti-gun politicians have attempted to control guns in the name of crime prevention this is an assault on the Second Amendment rights of US citizens . 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.” Not only did our Founding Fathers focus their debate on the right of people to keep and bear arms, they devoted energy to encouraging future generations to defend theses freedoms. In defense of gun ownership, Alexander Hamilton said, “If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens.” During our country’s development hundreds of law-abiding citizens were able to take up arms against lawless mobs to defend themselves, their family, their homes, and their businesses. They did the job law enforcement simply could not do. Lives were saved. Robberies were prevented. Homes and businesses were defended and left intact, all thanks to the Second Amendment to our constitutional, the right to keep and bear arms.
In the wake of all the school shootings in the past fifteen years gun control has become a more serious issue than before. Gun control has always been a concern in the United States, but not until the first major school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado did this topic become a reality to the American public. In 1999, this massacre left fifteen people dead including the assassins. And just recently on March 5, 2001 did the tradition continue, when Charles Andrew Williams killed two classmates, leaving many injured in Santee California.
Is the right to bare arms worth the amount of deaths and injuries in the United States? Gun Control has been a heavily debated and controversial topic throughout the United States. In 2013, 30,000 people died of gunshot wounds in America. After the prohibition of the “Gun Control Act of 1968,” there was a massive increase in homicide and suicide. Because there are so many shootings and unnecessary death today everywhere in the United States because of guns, the nation should adopt a universal gun control system enforcing stricter gun control laws, including background checks and permits.