Argumentative Essay: The Role Of Gun Control In Education

Many tragedies have occurred recently that have spurred the debate on whether or not we need tighter gun controls. On one side of the debate are the gun control supporters, who claim that the easy access to guns is the primary cause for high rates of crime plaguing the United States. On the other side are people who argue that gun laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns, since they will continue to get them illegally. Guns are used for protection when in the hands of people who obey the law. It is crucial to not hinder law-abiding citizen’s ability to possess firearms with stricter gun laws, since gun laws do not lower crime, and guns can keep people safe.

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."

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.

If a tighter restriction is placed on gun control, thus making it harder for individuals to obtain their own personal firearm, our elementary and secondary schools would be more sheltered and secure. On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza a “socially awkward” twenty year old went rogue. Lanza went on a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut which resulted in the death of twenty kindergarten children, four educators, the principle and the school’s psychologist. The mass murder ended when Lanza turned the gun on himself; just before the horrific massacre Lanza shot his mother to death in their home a couple minutes away from the elementary school. Regulating gun control would make schools much safer than the society as a whole.

Supporters of these stricter gun laws believe that deaths by guns, be it a homicide, suicide or even accidental, would drastically be reduced. According to Dustin Hawkins, “there are roughly 32,000 deaths per year in the United States caused by guns.” If more in depth background checks were implemented the homicide and suicide rate could lower. These background checks could predict if someone may become a violent offender or be on the verge of suicide. Also, fans of stricter gun laws feel that requiring owners of guns to attend classes and become more educated about gun safety could reduce accidental deaths. Gun death is a leading cause of death in America; but by introducing new laws, the United States can create a safer society.

Only four months into the calendar year of two-thousand-eighteen, and there have already been eighteen school shootings where someone was hurt or killed. That averages out to 1.4 shootings a week. “If only educators had a gun…” Staunch gun rights advocates across America continuously promote this scenario to lobby feverishly for the training and arming of school faculty. The issue of gun violence in schools has been a pressing issue on the forefront of national politics in the past few years. Although our elected United States President, Donald Trump argues that guns in the hands of teachers could prove to be beneficial, arming educators has the potential to promote a war zone, which inevitably could stimulate more violence; and allowing teachers to carry firearms could discourage

According to a study conducted by the American Journal of Medicine, “US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher” (Grinshteyn 268). With gun violence at such an astounding level, proponents of gun control believe having stricter laws regarding firearms will reduce the number of deaths in the United States, especially suicides. Supporters also believe

(1) In America, gun control has already taken place, but they have not yet taken a stand on ammunition amounts. America has the most mass shooting rates in the past 50 years compared to any other country. People blame it on “mentally unstable” people because they think that they are a problem in America when really they aren't focusing on the real problem: ammunition. Ammunition is used in every shooting no matter if it was an automatic gun or semi-automatic pistol. (1) (2) America does not have ammunition regulations and some believe if the U.S. had ammunition laws the people with guns would have a harder time shooting mass amounts of people with a restricted amount of bullets. In the past year, the U.S. has had multiple mass shootings, but they have not been put on the news or put out to the

Imagine yourself sitting in front of the tv watching the news and all of a sudden the breaking news cast interrupts the regular news. You hear that there has been a school shooting at the school your kids attend, and you automatically start frantically calling your kids to see if they’re ok. What if we could avoid this feeling of no hope and eliminate the fears some students have of going to school? Would you take action? Gun control has been a very controversial topic over the past few years due to the increase of police violence and school shootings. This increase of violence should be a clear indicator that gun control is needed in our country. If gun control was implicated in states all across the U.S., school shootings will be prevented, gun control will have finally been tested, and the people of America can finally have the safety they desire.

In the last three years gun control has been a more important issue do to bringing them to school. In 2011, 20% of high school students were bullied at school, and 33% reported being involved in a physical fight in the year before. In one month, nearly 6% of high schoolers stayed home because they felt unsafe at or own their way to school. More than 7% of 9th through 12th graders reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least ones in the last year. An additional 6% admitted to bringing a weapon on school property for protection. More than 50% of children who have been bullied online do not report the behavior to their parents, with no idea regarding this behavior. In 2011, one million children were harassed,

Every parent sends their child to school expecting to that they will return in the afternoon as schools must provide an appropriate level of safety measures in order to keep the children safe while school is in session. Many school officials argue that the safest way to keep children safe is to raise awareness. The critical point of the argument is guns as gun control has been a brutal battle lately in the United States. At a local High school in Parkland, Florida, an incident involving an AR-15 rifle shook school ground as well as debate on whether the school could have prevented the attack. Many students attending this local high school spoke out against the tragedy proposing that the school could have prevented the shooting. This argument sparked conversations throughout the nation about whether the school should have raised awareness of guns and their consequences. Should our schools educate our kids about guns just as they educate us about school intrusions and fire drills? The schools throughout this nation are not responsible for raising gun awareness as this will only interest the children in gun even more.

Am I against or with gun control. Well I’m with gun control because it can become a help to the police and we can stop crime before it happens. In Austin, Texas in 1966. A sniper in a tower shot at University of Austin students for 90 minutes. The police who reacted had help. Students went to their trucks and grabbed their rifles and shot along side of the police. It was enough to pin the shooter down and allow the police to take the shooter out. Police then thanked the civilians for helping them fire on the shooter.

“The second amendment of The United States Bill of Rights is my concealed weapons permit, period.”- Ted Nugent. Saving lives one by one starts with limiting the purchase, sale, and use of guns in America. According to Alexander Lee, the political and social debate over the question of how much gun control is appropriate and it has been regularly discussed within the last decade. Shootings such as Sandy Hook, and Tucson shootings have raised the government’s awareness on guns and possible restrictions and regulations. Gun talks are discussed with the question, “Will controlling guns cut back on violent crime rates?” Although many guns are open to be sold to the public over 18, there are traditional gun laws that limit who can own them. These laws include sell restrictions to the mentally disabled, the age in which you can obtain a gun, background checks, and dishonorably discharged military personnel. Gun control laws could have a positive effect in America by reducing homicide rates, but at the same time, citizens still have the right to bear arms under the second amendment under the U.S constitution. Gun control laws do not mean the absolute confiscation of guns, but rather reduce the amount of power a gun and the amount of ammo that a gun can hold.

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

Eighty hours of training is not enough for most educators to prepare physically and mentally in terms of efficiently handling school shooting situations. An exception of a minority of teachers, who were serving as Marines Corps officers, might be willing to be armed with gun because of their firearm experience. Nevertheless, a number of those teachers are minor, compared to the majority of teachers, who have never been in any training of gun skills. If arming teachers becomes an officially nationally policy, eighty-hour training is not enough for teachers to efficiently use guns. In South Dakota, educators have joined the program named “school sentinels” that allows them to be armed with weapons. In order to qualify this program, teachers have to not only “be approved by the school board or a law enforcement agency,” but also take a class with “eighty hours