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Argumentative Essay Gun Control

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English 101
Argumentative/Persuasive Essay
4/12/2013
Word Count 1,255
Readability 12.3

There are new proposed gun control laws in the aftermath of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut that occurred on December 14th, 2012. This incident claimed the lives of twenty 1st graders and six adults and has set the government in motion to try to prevent future acts of violence by strengthening gun control laws in the United States (Smith). This has been a topic that has been an extremely emotional debate with people on both sides unwilling to compromise. Gun advocates and critics of the new proposed gun laws argue that these new laws infringe on our constitutional …show more content…

There is also a focus on safety in schools and offering more help to the mentally ill. Also, the government is proposing tougher penalties for people who purchase guns with the intention of selling them to criminals (Remarks).
The first of these new proposals is the requirement of universal background checks for anyone who wants to purchase a firearm. This will hopefully close some loopholes in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and prevent criminals and people with a history of mental illness from obtaining firearms (Remarks). As the background check system stands now, people who buy guns from gun shows and other unlicensed sellers do not have to complete a background check (Stopping). For the Columbine massacre on April 20th, 1999, the killers purchased their guns at a gun show from an unlicensed seller, so no background check was performed. On April 16th, 2007 was the shooting at Virginia Tech and this shooter obtained a gun from a licensed gun dealer which he should have been prohibited from buying. He was able to purchase this weapon because his records were never reported to the FBI’s gun background check system. Again in Tucson on January 8th, 2001, a killer acted with guns he should have been prohibited from buying because his records also were not in the database. These considerable loopholes in our current

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