Gun Related Shootings

To begin with, guns give people a fighting chance to survive and protect others against criminals. “10, 2014 Pew Survey found that 57% of people believe that owning a gun protects them from being victimized” (Procon.org). Who would ever want to die without having the chance of fighting back. Taking away guns from Americans can cause more deaths to those who have no protection.

Guns have numerous uses besides killing your fellow man. Hunting is a big reason to own a weapon. Across the country, people hunt game; small and big. Some people might see this as a cruel act, but in most states the White Tailed Dear is amazingly overpopulated. Not many complain when you kill a cow to eat a hamburger, so it shouldn't be an issue to go hunting. People also enjoy shooting guns at targets. You can do long range sniping with rifles, shoot clay pigeons in the air with shot guns, or shoot targets with a hand gun. Each hobby is completely harmless, and enjoyable. Along with the recreational activities that firearms make possible, there is self defense. Let's face it - if you're in your home at night with an intruder in the house, who will act faster, 911 or a firearm in the hands of a trained user? The answer is obvious. In an emergency situation, a firearm is almost an essential. One might argue that the odds of you being held up in your own house are slim; well so are the odds of a gun related death. If a gun user is properly trained, a gun can and would protect people in case of an emergency.

All that should happen is certain types of guns shouldn't be accessible to the public. For example, a war zone gun like an M-16 should not be available to the general public because it is not used to hunt and is not a reasonable gun to carry simply to bare arms. Gun control would also put more restrictions on who can purchase a gun, because some people are not in the right state of mind to own a gun. Manufacturers might also be required to make all guns child proof. It's simple, if guns are available to everyone and anyone, gun violence will not be taken as seriously as it should be. Also, while more gun legislation is needed, the already existing gun laws on the state and national levels need to be strictly enforced. For example, it is a national law that in order to purchase a gun, a background check is required, but not all states enforce this law properly.

The mass shooting has become a big issue in the United States. After shootings like the one that happened in Newtown, Connecticut all Americans come together to look for ways to actually prevent mass shootings to happened. “Mass shootings are defined as the killing of four or more victims Rates of Mass shootings have risen dramatically in the last few years. Since 2006, there have been more than 200 mass killing in the United States.” (Usatoday.com) Due to the big increase in mass shootings a question is still debatable. Are these mass shootings due to environmental factors or genetics?

Data is difficult to gather when researching gun-related violence within gangs. However, it is obvious that gang members have guns and they retrieve their guns from the illegal gun market. According to the National Institute of Justice (2013), “Gun-related homicide is most prevalent among gangs and during the commission of felony crimes.” Dating back to 1980, 70 percent of all homicides within gangs involved a gun. In 1993, the percentage rose to 95 percent (National Institute of Justice 2013).

interpretation, as well as varying degrees of moderated success or lack thereof. For example, they open the chapter with a discussion of the fact that sociological experts in the Clinton administration had predicted a massive influx of gun-related crime within the coming years, stating that the percentage of teen homicides was subject to increase as much as fifteen percent over the course of the next decade. They then go on to admit that even these experts were unable to adequately predict the trend that occurred, in that several factors ensured the actual decrease of teen homicides over the course of those years. By 2003, as this chapter states, the number of gun-related murders in New York City had fallen to 596, as compared to 2,245 in 1990.

The author used statistics such as relationship between victim and attacker and what weapon was used. 52% of homicides took place with guns, and 30% took place using knives. If gun control laws took effect, the United States government would also need to make laws controlling knives, screwdrivers, and other household items, because the homicide rate using those weapons would only increase. Gun control laws would cut down on the number of shootings, but would not strongly decrease homicide numbers as a whole. “Even assuming such assassins would be unable to obtain guns-a doubtful supposition-they would resort to other weapons on the order of dynamite to achieve their intention” (Zimring 1968, p.3). I agree with the author’s statement completely; if someone wants to harm another civilian bad enough, they will find a way. In my opinion, getting hit by a car or poisoned is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than getting shot with a gun.

According to the past summaries ledgers provided by GunViolenceArchive.org the number of gun related incidents has increased over the past three years, along with the number of children deaths. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the charts, the number of deaths has been steadily increasing over the past three years by about 1,000 deaths, a crazy number that should be going in the opposite direction.

Firearms have been used for centuries to alter history. Without the creation of it the world would be very different places. Some countries may never have been formed and some may have been saved. Firearms have built cities and destroyed them; they have caused crime and stopped crime, just think where we would be without them.

School shootings are becoming more common in the United States. People may say that these shootings are making our gun control more strict. From my point of view there will be stricter gun control. If we are going to have stricter gun control, then there needs to be background checks for people that are going to buy guns or ammunition. There have been shootings all over the U.S, including Sandy Hook Elementary, Columbine High School, Umpqua Community College in Oregon, and Virginia Tech College.

We need guns for self-defiance, because the police cannot protect everyone all of the time. 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed and said that taking the guns away would make it more difficult for people to protect their houses and families. Having a gun makes people feel so much safer knowing that they can protect them self and their family by having a gun in their house. When you have a gun it makes you look intimidating, so that means criminals will not break in your house knowing you have something to protect your self with.

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.

While easy accessibility to guns can help keep a person safe from people trying to harm them,, ultimately they are either not used or used for the wrong purpose, such as shooting someone innocent. Therefore, the fact that handguns can be easily bought in minutes has a negative effect on society, because most gun deaths result not from automatic

The problem with guns is fairly obvious: they decrease the difficulty of killing or injuring a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994), he points out the obvious dangers. About 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. Firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985, the cost of shootings was an estimated $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed.

Guns are needed. The main purpose is for protection. People think that by banning guns Americans will be safer. This is not true though. Criminals get their guns through illegal ways so it would be hard to confiscate all the guns. With guns taken away most Americans would probably turn on their government. Some people want to ban guns because they are used in crimes. But the guns are not committing the crime people are.