Argumentative Essay On Gun Control

‘“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.”’ (“Gun Control”) Due to firearms, more than 30,000 people die in America every year. Mass shootings happen frequently and people die because of the lack of laws and their security. The United States needs better gun control laws because automatic assault rifles are easy to buy, the mentally ill can purchase guns, and many die from guns each year.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects individual gun ownership. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads, "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." Gun ownership is an American tradition older than the country itself and is protected by the Second Amendment; more gun control laws would infringe upon the right to bear arms. Justice Antonin Scalia, LLB, in the June 26, 2008 District of Columbia et al. v. Heller US Supreme Court majority opinion syllabus stated, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." The McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) ruling also stated that the Second Amendment is an individual right. Lawrence Hunter, Chairman of Revolution PAC, stated, "The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights."

According to a report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, the United States has about 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns and has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. With no restriction and so much freedom, firearms can be distributed throughout the United States illegally and obtained as easy as buying it from a person, disregarding all gun laws. Implementing stricter background checks can help reduce the amount of crime relating to gun violence. It can also keep firearms away from those who shouldn’t have possession of them.

Sandy Hook Elementary. Aurora, Colorado. San Bernardino, California. Las Vegas, Nevada. Orlando, Florida. (Words with Negative Connotation) These are just some of the biggest mass shootings that have swept America in the past few years. Hundreds of lives are lost each year to gun related violence in the United States alone. Gun control has been a topic in our country since our founding fathers adopted the second amendment to the US constitution. Although recently controversy has sparked to an all-new extent in America due to the recent spike in mass shootings and gun related homicides. So many families and loves ones are affected each year in the United States because of gun related violence and other mass killing events, because of these events gun control laws need to be revamped and strengthened in American in order to protect the citizens.

What cause crime? Is is an individual’s access to firearms or is it their willingness to act illegally given the opportunity? In this argumentative essay I will be discussing one of the most debated topics in the United States today, gun control. There are two extremely opposite views on this topic: the belief that guns enable crime, and the belief that guns deter crime. These polar opposites leave room for a very good discussion of what facts and truths may lie behind this topic. Throughout this essay I will be analyzing both sides of this issue.The significance of a topic such as gun control is very prevalent in today’s society. Some see it sad that we must argue over one of our supposedly deemed unalienable rights such as bearing a firearm.

Viettes,Vernick, and Webter include in their journal that, “ Despite the magnitude of the problem, US gun policy rarely considers appropriate criteria for disqualifying someone from lawfully possessing a firearm,” concluding that there are laws for potential gun owners, but they are what they state as least stringent. They also stated that nearly three of ten gun offenders (73 of 253 or 28.9%) were legal gun possessors but would have been prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms when committing their most recent offense if their states had stricter prohibitions. Offenders who were already prohibited under current law acquired their gun from a licensed dealer, where a background check is required, five times less often than offenders who were not prohibited. Their conclusion from their results states that “Stricter gun ownership laws would have made firearm possession illegal for many state prison inmates who used a gun to commit a crime. Requiring all gun sales to be subject to a background check would make it more difficult for these offenders to obtain guns.” Laws that are current now for gun laws are Federal law disqualifies certain groups of high-risk individuals from owning guns, including felons, fugitives, unlawful users of or those addicted to controlled substances, those who have been ‘adjudicated as a mental defective’ or committed to a mental institution, individuals who have been dishonourably discharged from the armed forces, persons subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders, persons less than the age of 18 years (for handguns) and domestic violence misdemeanants. Federal law does not set a minimum age requirement for the legal possession of long guns. Some ways we could help our gun laws rather than take them away

In the year 2016 alone, there have been 145 mass shootings around the United States, while there have been only 173 days in the years so far. In order to prevent these atrocities from occurring so frequently gun ownership should be regulated by both the federal and state governments through a background check for all sales of firearms. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System has prevented more than two million convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers from buying guns. The law also has a deterrent effect since the prohibited purchasers are less likely to try to buy guns when they know comprehensive background check requirements are in place. However, currently the federal law requires criminal background checks only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which counts for only sixty percent of the total gun sales. The U.S. Congress needs to regulate the obtainment of guns with a background check for all sales of firearms in order to protect the lives of citizens in this country while not violating the Second Amendment and the rights of the state.

Gun control in the United States is a very controversial topic in today’s political society, leaving the nation divided into two sides with two strongly opinionated beliefs. This all started with the increase in the amount of mass shootings and an overall increase in gun violence. The two sides consist of the liberal point of view and the conservative point of view. The liberals believe that the availability of firearms to the people in the country is a major issue, and that the U.S. government is at fault for the mass shootings due to the lenient regulations on guns. In retaliation, the conservatives argue that having a gun is a God given right, that the Second Amendment of The Constitution. Although the availability of guns is seen to be

Many innocent lives each year are taken away because most states do not have laws particularly dealing with private dealers administering background checks. Background checks are needed to make sure that clients who are purchasing firearms will not use the gun to endanger themselves or others. However, even in the states where background checks are administered the laws still consist of many loopholes; some of these include, not checking for mental illnesses that the client might have , not following up on the client after they purchased the gun, and how private sellers and many states are not administrating strict and complete background checks., “Researchers confirm that universal background checks laws effectively improve public safety and

The death rate in America is extremely high and is rising rapidly as time goes on and the youth of the country get older. With this amount of guns in America, someone with the passion to kill someone or themselves, the most convenient way to commit suicide or kill someone would be to obtain one of the million guns across America. There needs to be laws and regulations put forth in order to stop all of this violence due to the easy access of firearms in the United States. Although background checks will not completely end gun related violence in the United States of America; it will reduce

In the past decade alone, there have been countless mass shootings in the United States alone resulting in a large body count. Whenever a mass shooting occurs, a debate always follows about how easy it is to obtain firearms, despite background checks that have been enacted to make it difficult to purchase firearms. Background checks are “designed to determine if the prospective buyer fits any criteria that prohibit purchase or possession of firearms, including a prior felony conviction, certain domestic violence misdemeanors, unlawful use of controlled substances or, inter alia, commitment to a mental institution.” (Vernick et al. 98). Background checks are necessary for public safety, but people manage to maneuver their way around background checks when it comes to purchasing a firearm. A background check is not required when purchasing from an unlicensed dealer such as an online store or dealers at a gun show. People prohibited from purchasing guns go through unlicensed dealers because they are not required by law to perform background checks for a firearm purchase. For example, four to ten percent of online shoppers are prohibited by law from possessing firearms, yet they still are looking around in online

In the past decade alone, there have been countless mass shootings in the United States alone resulting in a large body count. Whenever a mass shooting occurs, a debate always follows about how easy it is to obtain firearms, despite background checks that have been enacted to make it difficult to purchase firearms. Background checks are “designed to determine if the prospective buyer fits any criteria that prohibit purchase or possession of firearms, including a prior felony conviction, certain domestic violence misdemeanors, unlawful use of controlled substances or, inter alia, commitment to a mental institution.” (Vernick et al. 98). Background checks are necessary for public safety, but people manage to maneuver their way around background checks when it comes to purchasing a firearm. A background check is not required when purchasing from an unlicensed dealer such as an online store or dealers at a gun show. People prohibited from purchasing guns go through unlicensed dealers because they are not required by law to perform background checks for a firearm purchase. For example, four to ten percent of online shoppers are prohibited by law from possessing firearms, yet they still are looking around in online gun stores (98). Legislation should be passed to

When tragic, major events happen in the United States, you can always expect an argument or something to unfold about how to prevent something similar from happening again. On October 1st, a man named Stephan Paddock, shot and killed 59 people including himself, while injuring an additional 546. This shooting is now considered the deadliest attack in United States history, so of course you can expect an ongoing political conversation on how to prevent attacks like this. During the attack, Paddock used what is called a “bump stock,” on many of his guns, making his guns’ rapid fire, like an automatic gun, which is what made it so easy for him to open fire and attack so many. After the tragic event, a gun control organization looked into the

First and foremost, the United States needs to revise and enforce the process for gun purchases in all states in order to filter out mentally ill and unstable people. America’s current federal and state gun laws are weak and have many loopholes. These weak laws and loopholes have allowed thousands of prohibited buyers to legally purchase firearms over the past decade. For example, many gun purchases from private sellers are not subject to checking identification, there’s no background check, and no records are kept (Cooper).

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