Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Negative effects of stricter gun laws
Media influences on family
Whats the benefit of stricter gun control law
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Negative effects of stricter gun laws
Last month a horrific incident occurred taking the lives of, news reporter Alison Parker, and camera man Adam Ward. Journalist for the New York Times, Nick Kristof, wrote an article titled “Lessons from the Virginia Shooting” in which he states his opinion on gun control. Kristof, is a human and woman’s rights activist, but also a father and husband which would explain his concern on this topic. He believes we need better firearm restrictions in order to reduce death due to gun violence. This has been a controversial issue for a while, but I believe it had more attention brought to it when the live shooting occurred in Virginia on August 26th. I personally think Kristof wrote this article because he has children and a wife, so it’s normal for …show more content…
I think that’s how this author gets people to relate to him and understand his viewpoint. Death is something that everyone is terrified of when it comes to their loved ones, but he also states that we could save thousands of lives. So I think Kristof is trying to appeal more towards family values when he uses statements involving life and death. Also he says that we need to lead as states. This involves taking a stand, which is using a value of leadership. I think this is where he tries to reach out to the more independent individuals. He makes it sound like we can make the difference. I feel as if Kristof chooses these values to use in his article because they are relatable. From a personal stand point, I can say that family is a much respected value of mine.
One of the things that makes the authors argument so strong is the amount of factual information he uses. Right from the start he states three facts on firearm casualties to back his claim that we need better restrictions. He also uses credible sources like, CDC (Center for disease Control and Prevention). He does a fine job of tying all of his evidence to his claims by giving possibilities of future outcomes. For example, he states that by working on making guns safer and restricting the law, we could save around eleven thousand lives a
comparisons. He brought up very interesting ways to regulate guns and make them safer, but they would not be as effective as one might think. Just that now is too late for these gun regulations to function properly. He said that the steps he gave won’t eliminate gun deaths but certainly will decrease the amount of deaths as much as a seat belt does to people on cars (164).
In the article “Gun Control Can Prevent School Shootings,” Bennett shares the effects of gun violence in the past, present, and future. The Sandy Hook shooting occurred on December 14, 2012 when twenty children and six adult staff members were killed. Barely a month after the shooting, eleven of the families affected by the shooting went to meet privately with Joe Biden, and members from the Congress and cabinet. Bennett stated, “They were preparing to wade into some of the roughest waters in American politics: the gun debate.” President Obama gave a speech in Connecticut vowing to fight for change. And as Bennett put it, “Members of Congress started acting as parents instead of politicians.” Bennett explained to the families that they couldn't get rid of assault weapons or high capacity ammunition magazines, no matter how bad the shooting was. The families got angry and stated they did not want to know what they couldn't do, but what they could do to honor their children.
Author Jeffrey Goldberg argues that having a gun control could reduce crime, studies show America roughly has 30,000 deaths a year, but halfs are suicides and other are from natural death or gun shootings. Furthermore Goldberg stats that it’s too late to have gun control because there are an estimate
What is your definition of gun control? In the essay “There is a reason they choose schools”, you will discover what gun control means to Timothy Wheeler. Wheeler is a major part of the organization, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership. He has written an essay in which he is trying to prove that without being able to use self-defense, guns pose a public health risk. Wheeler has worked with many physicians, medical students, and scientist who support his theory. By doing extensive studies in previous gun violence cases, they want to prove guns are more than just a health issue, they are a health crisis. Not only to those who carry them, but also to those who don’t. In many of these studies, they used schools as the primary target of gun violence.
Shootings at Kent State University What happened at Kent State University? This is a question that many Americans were asking following the crisis on the Kent campus. In the days preceding May 4, 1970, protests, disruption, and violence erupted on the university grounds. These acts were the students’ reaction to President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia.
...lation. In all actuality, gun legislation is a serious issue and through this essay, a reader would simply believe that the gun legislation is fine and does not need to be stronger. Although he gives personal examples throughout the essay, other examples would enforce that there should be stronger gun legislation and that guns actually cause harm. Other examples would also make Verhulst's essay stronger and show that other people are just as weak as he is, and reader's would have a stronger belief that gun legislation is too weak. His examples alone promote guns and do not prevent them because the examples glorify his weakness to yield to the temptation. Although he believes that the causes of his weakness and other peoples' weakness is because of emotions that triumph over reason, a stronger and bolder person for stronger gun legislation would have self-control.
And you would be absolutely right to be distressed over something like that. During a television episode of The Daily Show in 2013, John Oliver interviews Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defence League. Oliver ands Van Cleave a small paper stop sign that reads “2nd Amendment” and instructs Van Cleave to “hold it up whenever I make a suggestion you think is an infringement upon your second amendment rights.” Oliver goes on to list three things: assault weapons ban, increased background checks, and a mandatory one hour waiting period if you buy a gun. Van Cleave raises the sign after every suggestion claiming, “at the end of the day, none of it works.” Oliver then goes on to cite the time in 1996 when Australia’s conservative Prime Minister, John Howard implemented a mandatory gun buyback across the country. The former Prime Minister also reports that in the eighteen years before the gun ban, there were a total of thirteen massacres, but in all the years since there has not been a single occurrence. He later goes on to report that gun related homicides have gone down by 50-60% and that youth suicides involving guns has decreased dramatically. When Oliver relays this information to Van Cleave, he seems to have lost his ability to argue with him and keeps
Aroung the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the controversial and widely argued issue of gun control sparked and set fire across America. In the past decade however, it has become one of the hottest topics in the nation. Due to many recent shootings, including the well known Sandy Hook Elementary school, Columbine High School, Aurora movie theater, and Virginia Tech, together totaling 87 deaths, many people are beginning to push for nationwide gun control. An article published in the Chicago Tribune by Illinois State Senator Jacqueline Collins, entitled “Gun Control is Long Overdue” voiced the opinion that in order for America to remain the land of the free, we must take action in the form of stricter gun laws. On the contrary, Kathleen Parker, a member of the Washington Post Writers Group whose articles have appeared in the Weekly Standard, Time, Town & Country, Cosmopolitan, and Fortune Small Business, gives a different opinion on the subject. Her article in The Oregonian “Gun Control Conversation Keeps Repeating” urges Americans to look at the cultural factors that create ...
McMahan, the author of the New York Times editorial, includes why the United States should rid private ownership of guns completely or as much as possible. He explains tactful points as to why guns cause more bad then good when privately owned. “When most citizens are armed, as they were in the Wild West, crime doesn’t cease. (McMahan)” Allowing anyone to receive gun ownership is the same as putting a helpless baby in a lion’s den. Prior to the editorial an accident occurred in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty year old Adam Lanza, killed his mother and then grabbed three privately owned guns from his house. He later went to Sandy Hook elementary school where he shot and killed twenty kids age’s six to seven as well as six adults. Once approached by officers Adam Lanza took a shotgun and killed himself. "It's horrible. It's really ho...
In "Just Take Away Their Guns," author James Q. Wilson argues that "Legal restraints on the lawful purchase of guns will have little effect on the illegal use of guns" (Wilson 63). Wilson points out that it would be tough to remove all legally purchased guns from the streets and nearly impossible to confiscate illegally purchased guns. Gun advocate J. Warren Cassidy argues that "The American people have a right 'to keep and bear arms'. This right is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. . ." in an article titled "The Case for Firearms" (Cassidy 275). James B. Jacobs and Kimberly A. Potter wrote in an article called "Keeping guns out of the "wrong" hands: the Brady law and limits of regulations" that "US law enforcement should concentrate on stiff sentences for crimes committed with guns and recognize that gun control laws do not keep guns from the wrong people" (Jacobs and Potter 1 of 27). Daniel B. Polsby, author of "The false promise: gun control and crime," simply states, "Gun control laws don't work" (Polsby 1 of 11). Polsby feels that "gun control laws are ineffective because [they] have not been proven to be a deterrent to crime" (1 of 11). James D. Wright states, in his article "Second Thoughts about Gun Control," that "If there were fewer guns around, there would also be less crime and less violence" (Wright 93). More gun control laws will only make it a hassle for law abiding citizens to purchase guns. They will not keep guns out of the criminal's hands because they have other methods of obtaining guns, such as the secondary market which is the illegal sale of firearms. Another reason why more gun control legislation will backfire is that those who want to purchase guns to protect themselves a...
Supporters of gun control state that to decrease crimes committed with fire arms (which amass a high majority of crimes) guns should be banned from private ownership. This removes guns from the public, therefore taking away the instrument of easily accomplishing crimes. Arthur Kellermann and Donald T. Raey, two gun control advocates, did their own research into the issue and published a discovery of their own; the 43-1 Statistic. In this statistic, Kellerman and Raey state that a gun will be used in a justified shooting one time, while forty three other people are killed by a gun unjustly, either by suicide, accident, or criminal (Heumer 9). According to these two researchers, gun ownership is not worth it. Private ownership of guns saved one life wh...
Adam Gopnik’s article “shootings” (2007), in the beginning explained the children that have been shot, and their cellphones have been ringing, getting calls from their worried families. With the author starting off like this, it made readers want to continue reading to know how the shooting happened, the author hooked the readers in. He talked about various gun laws and gun control later on and the misuse of gun violence. The author's point of view is that gun violence is addressed more seriously in other countries with the same situation. He is trying to persuade the reader with his style of writing, providing the reader with information about the shooting in Virginia Tech. The writer is concerned about the issue and he is informing us that Americans do not regard gun control as a serious matter as other countries do. He argues about how a dangerous weapon like a gun is if it comes in the wrong hands. Without any further restrictions, guns are available for mostly everyone who wants to have it, guns are dangerous and no one needs to have a possession of it. This is a persuasive essay
Wright, Stephen E. "Gun Control Laws Will Not Save Lives." Guns and Crime. Ed. Christine Watkins. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
In America guns have been a part of the country’s society since it’s birth. Throughout history the citizens of the US have used firearms to protect the nation, protect their families, hunt for food and engage in sporting activities. The issue of Guns and gun control is complex. Weighing the rights and liberties of the individual against the welfare and safety of the public has always been a precarious balancing act. In the United States, gun control is one of these tumultuous issues that has both sides firmly entrenched in their positions. Those parties in favor of gun ownership and the freedom to use and keep arms, rely on the fact that the provision for such rights is enshrined in their constitution. In this climate of growing violence, rife with turmoil and crime, gun advocates feel more than ever that their position is justified. As citizens of the “Land of the Free” possessing a gun is a fundamental right, and may even be a necessity... Anti- gun lobbyists point to the same growing violence and gun related crimes in an effort to call on the government to take action. By enacting more laws and stricter control, these people not in favor of guns feel society would be better safer.
The conversation of gun control and gun regulation has been a great debate over the decades. NRA Executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, in his speech on Newtown Shooting that occurred on December 21st, 2012, addresses the topic of gun control and argues that guns are not the cause of gun violence. LaPierre's project is to instead of gun control and decreasing the numbers of guns, increase the numbers of guns to solve the problem of gun violence. On the other side of debate, an American journalist, Nicholas Kristof, in his journal, "Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?" argues that guns are the cause of gun violence, but they should not be banned. Kristof's project is to regulate guns with many cautions. While these two authors have different arguments and projects, they use similar strategies to advance their claims. This paper will focus on the way each author strategically uses compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem-solution to advance their claims and how effective these strategies are used.