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Gun Control Argumentative Analysis

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The issue of gun control as a political and social matter represents one of the most contentious divisions in the country today. Recent highly publicized shootings have brought the debate to the forefront of the public conscience. With over 300 million privately owned guns and 30,000 deaths involving firearms reported per year, both sides of the debate are firmly invested in upholding their cause (Rogers, 2012). The emotional nature of the issue is a lightning rod in political campaigns and the complexities of the issue have confounded law enforcement. Both gun rights and gun control lobbies have struggled to find any compromise that balances the rights of citizens with the need to end violence. The existing and proposed gun control in …show more content…

The proposed ammunition ban did not meet the ATF’s own criteria for armor piercing. Furthermore, this argument was carefully crafted under the premise of banning specific ammo that will defeat Level 2A body armor. Almost all modern rifle ammunition will penetrate Level 2A body armor, regardless of whether it is fired from a pistol or rifle. Under this premise, the ATF would have precedence to ban any rifle ammunition. Indeed, ATF Director B. Todd Jones alluded to this potential move during a Senate Appropriations Hearing (Bedard, 2015). This ban would have the effect of making the cost of shooting prohibitively expensive for a large portion of the populace. To supporters of gun rights, this ban represented an attempt at opportunistic backdoor legislation designed to eliminate access to assault rifles after legislation had stalled in …show more content…

In 2006 and 2007, the Phoenix field office of the ATF perpetrated a pilot program ostensibly designed to track the flow of privately purchased guns to their endpoints in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The ATF facilitated the weapons flow by directing gun shops in US border states to sell to individuals they suspected of being straw purchasers, that is, someone purchasing on the behalf of a prohibited third party. This program was expanded to Operation Fast and Furious from 2009 to 2011, delivering over two thousand weapons to the cartels and enabling the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and two US Border Patrol agents. The ATF failed to deliver on its promise to track the guns to their final destinations and the Obama administration subsequently used the rise in Mexican drug war violence as justification for expanded gun control measures in the US. International ties between the US and Mexico were also strained as a result (Kopel p.

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