A Voice Of The Voiceless : More Rational Gun Control For The Good Of Society

Gun control should not exist at all in the United States. Mass shootings have almost become seen as normal event in the United States. What people do not understand is that gun control is not the answer; there are countries with little to no control that have fewer shootings. According to The Washington Post,Finland is ranked number 4 in countries with the most guns despite that they only had 24 homicides by firearm (“Gun homicides and ownership by countries” n.pag.) . In the article Did Gun Control Work In Australia “it is shown that gun control has reduced the problems but it still has not completely got rid of all firearm deaths”(Matthews n.pag.). The number of murders, homicides, or suicides do not go up due to people just owning more guns. Clayton Perry, a staff writer at the University of Maine, even points out “Stricter gun laws were in place during the Assault Weapons Ban between 1994 and 2004, but that didn't stop the shooters at Columbine in 1999 ”(Perry n. pag.). In Iceland, thirty out of a hundred people own a gun and they have zero homicides caused by guns a year(“Gun Homicides and ownership by country” n. pag.). In this day and age, everything is unpredictable, guns are a form of protection for everyone and there should not be restrictions on protection. The U.S. Department of Justice released a data brief that states, “ On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property”(Rand BJS Statistician n. pag.). The National Sheriffs Association released that the average police response time is at eighteen minutes while the average school shooting only last twelve minutes (“Embracing Technology To Decrease Response Time” n. pag.). Gun control should not exist because other countries do fine without it , high gun ownership has no link with increasing death rates , and guns are not harmful when instructions are followed.

Guns and weaponry have always been a major part of the cultures of the world since the beginning of time. For the United States of America, gun use can be traced back to the colonial days, our revolutionary roots. They have helped the United States turn the table specifically in times of dire need such as the Revolutionary War. Not only have advances in weaponry influenced the U.S., they have also helped to shape events across the globe. In 1791, this was understood by the Founding Fathers while writing the Constitution, which can be seen in the Second Amendment: “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”[1]. With the advancement of guns specifically, there has been a rise in mass shootings, casualties, crime and controversy that has begun to split the United States. All a person has to do is turn on the television to a news channel, and at any given time, heartache, most often linked to guns, can be found. Some cry for a need for better gun regulation or sometimes complete abolishment for recreational use, while others cling to their weapons with claim of self-defense and economic profit. Violent crimes have been on the rise years; there has been an estimated 1.2 billion crimes of violence that occurred in the United States alone [2]. One thing is certain: gun trade and regulation boosts the economy. Last year, 301,

Thirteen people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999, thirty-three died during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, and twenty-seven people, twenty of whom were children no older than seven, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 (Kirk). These name only a few of the larger and most well-known school shooting incidences. In total, 297 people have lost their lives due to school-based shootings since 1980 (Kirk). Although this number may be small in comparison to death by guns overall, these instances are completely unwarranted and it is likely that they could have been avoided or at the very least reduced. These people, college and high school students, teachers, and even children, might still be alive today if our

After seventeen school shootings already this year, Americans seem to know the routine. They see the news of another shooting , wonder what the world has come to, tweet out their thoughts and prayers, and move on with their lives as though nothing happened. Some politicians will propose reforms, but opposers will shoot them down by claiming that we must wait until long after the tragedy to talk about politics. With an average of 1.4 shootings per week this year, when will it not seem too soon (Ahmed). In his book Columbine, author Dave Cullen takes a look at one of America’s most infamous tragedies, the Columbine High School Massacre. In the April of 1999, two boys entered Columbine High with deadly weapons and proceeded to kill fourteen of their peers, as well as injure others. As the first publicized school

The argument over gun control is an ongoing debate with the first big written regulation dating back to when the 2nd amendment was first written in 1791. The second amendment states that “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” (Legal Information Institute). Since then it has been fought over time and time again about what this statement truly means and what it entitles for people. The definition of gun control is “government regulation of the selling, owning, and use of guns” (Merriam Webster), so by definition the meaning of gun control already violates a person’s 2nd amendment right to bear arms. However, it was ruled by the supreme court that “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited” (Denniston, Lyle), meaning that there are certain things the government can do that would technically not infringe upon a persons right to bear arms because the interpretation of the 2nd amendment could has many possible meaning since our forefathers who wrote it are long since dead and can’t tell us what they really meant.

The pro-gun rights voice is gaining influence while the gun-control voice is losing influence. Of the top 25 stakeholders in the gun control debate, only one is a Republican politician, Chris Christie. The shifting platform is favoring those who support gun rights and the gun-control advocates are losing their influence. In the new study performed by Forbes Insights, an independent and unbiased organization, they found that the NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented”. The Republican politicians are not part of this debate. The gun-control groups instead simply want to infringe on the American people’s right to

Of the many problems we face in gun control it is availability of guns to the very people that don’t need them. The Sandy Hook shooting, occurring on December 14, 2012, sparked a nation wide push for stricter gun control. The shooter, a mentally ill male, shot down 26 people with a semi-automatic AR-15-- a military type assault rifle. Many Americans were left wondering how a mentally ill person would be capable of acquiring such guns. The truth is that it is not very difficult for someone to acquire such weaponry. On January 14, 2013 Brian Walsh wrote in a Time article that there was nearly one gun for every person in the U.S. We own almost, if not, half of the world 's civilian guns. Furthermore our laws and regulations are generally slack compared to other developed countries. In Canada, not only do gun owners receive a background check, they must undergo a safety gun course and have a federal registration certificate for that weapon. Japan 's laws are among the strictest: essentially banning all weapons except those used in competitions and requiring

Ever since the massacre at columbine high school in 1999 where fifteen people pronounced dead and twenty-one more injured, school shootings have gotten worse. Since the year 2000, there have been more than 188

Gun violence is a major flaw in our schools and in communities at large. There were 28 people that died in the Sandy Hooks school shooting on December 14, 2012. At the columbine high school shooting on April 20,1999, there were 15 people that were killed. At the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14,2018, there were 17 students and teachers that had been shot and killed. Since Columbine, there has been 122 deaths from school shootings.

On April 20, 1999, two teens went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.It prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety. After this event, people feared more school shootings would occur. The Columbine shooting led to making sticker rules for students attending any type of school. People were so traumatized after the shooting that many people decided to drop out or be homeschooled. This fear was not justified and it was a overall negative effect.

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.

It is suprising how bad gun violence is in the United States and how little gun control does to put a stop to it. Gun control is any law, executive order, or legislation that tries to stop gun violence by simply taking or restricting guns from everyone. The idea is if there are fewer guns in the US, then there must be less gun violence. “In the United States alone, 440,095 people died of firearms related causes of gun violence in 2001 through 2014 (Bower)”. This idea of restricting guns is to hopefully stop gun violence is supported mostly by Democrats and other people with leftist politics (Liberals) as a potential solution to gun violence. Laws like these often unfairly target guns like assault rifles (guns that are or were used by the infantry units in the military), handguns, and semi-automatic rifles (any rifle that has a magazine and only fires one shot per trigger pull) even if they have no relevance to gun violence. Although many people do believe gun control will work, it should not be allowed to take guns away from healthy and innocent American citizens. Instead, we need laws to get illegal guns off of the market and stop letting gun shows distribute illegal guns. Mass gun control seems like the simple solution to gun violence because fewer guns should mean less gun crime thinking, but it will only make guns a financial burden for civilians, allow for loopholes to be created, cause more guns to enter illegal markets which would make mass murders even more commonplace, and create a huge problem for law enforcement.

The alarming and disturbing tragedy befalling on April 20, 1999 at America’s Columbine High School is an act reflecting the extraordinarily high rate of gun related violence of American society.

“Nearly 12,000 Americans are murdered with guns every year – a rate more than 20 times higher than that of other developed countries” (everytownresearch.org/). A lot of developed countries all over the world have stricter gun control laws. Since these laws in those countries have been enacted, their gun violence has dropped dramatically. In the United States, however, since we do not have any gun control laws we are at a greater risk of gun

Gun Control is one of the major issues that not only does America have, but the whole world. Gun Control is a set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians. In 2007, it was estimated that there were globally about 875 million small arms in the hands of civilians, law enforcement agencies, and armed forces. Of these firearms, 650 million or 75%, were held by civilians and 270 million were U.S. civilians. The U.S. should crackdown on guns by creating stricter gun laws now or else what beholds later generations to come with all the gun violence we have today.