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Gun Control

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Gun Control

On Thursday, May 9th, a two-year old boy was found dead after shooting himself in the head. The boy had found his father’s handgun while the father himself was occupied with other things; his son was just a few feet away. This little boy is not the first kid to shoot himself. Accidents like this are just one of the reasons to why guns should be restricted in the United States. Gun access has become very easy for people and that has caused many problems.
Nowadays, people can buy guns online and in local stores such as Wal-Mart! At the age of 18, a person can legally buy a long gun, and at the age of 21, a person can buy a handgun. As of today, Americans own between 262 million and 310 million firearms as reported by Hill, …show more content…

Besides Britain, other countries have worked on limiting rifle and weapon use and have received better and successful results by doing so. Australia is an excellent example. In 1996, a “pathetic social misfit,” as a judge, killed 35 people with a spray of bullets from semiautomatic weapons (Gun Challenge). Within weeks, the Australian government was working on gun reform laws that banned assault weapons and shotguns, tightened licensing and financed gun amnesty and buyback programs. At the time, the prime minister, John Howard, stated, “We do not want the American disease imported into Australia.” The American Journal of Law and Economics reported in 2010 that firearm homicides in Australia dropped 59 percent between 1995 and 2006. There were 236 gun deaths in Australia in 2011, compared to 32,163 gun deaths in the United States. According to the Gun Challenge article written in 2012 by the New York Times magazine, gun deaths are even expected to increase to 34,000 by the year 2015 .This is more than auto-related deaths per year in the United States.
It is impossible to completely eliminate gun violence in the United States or in any other country for that matter; however, it is possible to greatly decrease the gun violence rate. The United States should work on restricting gun use, and making it more difficult for people to buy one. Not only should a criminal background check be done, but also a psychological

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