Gun Violence And Gun Control

If we, the United States of America Make it so people with a history of mental health issue cant but a gun there would be a major decrease in the school shooting population. Like I said the 2 gun men in Columbine High school they had a history of mental health and they made and bought there guns. If we would focus on mental health issues and spend some time and money on it then the school shootings would decrease a tremendously.

The New gun laws should be to make people responsible for allowing guns to meet the hands of people with mental illnesses. Gun show owners as well as the dealers at these gun shows should fall under federal crime laws for breaking these laws with stricter punishments. The parents, or owners of these guns that fall under the hands of these crazed gunmen should be at fault/ liable, and should also be punished to full extent of the law for being so irresponsible. These actions would save so many innocent lives. This should be the focus of these new gun laws, rather than regulations on guns. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

On the news this morning, there was a government official that made an extraordinarily prominent point; he said that whenever there has been a monumental disaster in this country, the government never hesitates to take immediate action. The case isn’t always so with gun control, however. Every single time there is a gun related disaster, government officials say now is not the time to push for gun control laws. While President Obama was in office, he passed an executive order that would prevent people with mental disorders from obtaining firearms. Congress has refused to enforce the order. An order that could have prevented countless tragedies. How many guns are in circulation at the moment with owners that are mentally unstable? It makes one wonder, could it have been prevented? There is also the ethical issue facing health care professionals about the privacy of their patients. If one were forced to turn over such damning information to the government, whereas it can be assumed that there would also be a dramatic decrease in the amount of reported cases of mentally unhealthy people receiving treatment or even acknowledgment. The reason for this is that people will not risk their right to own a gun for anything. If this means abstaining from receiving proper health care or therapy, then they simply will not. While applauding the bills intention to make firearms less available to people that would not use it for the right intentions, gun rights advocates sharply criticized the bill, claiming it infringed on the Second Amendment rights of Americans’ (Vitale 1). President Trump recently signed a bill that removed the regulations placed on people with mental illnesses that would limit the purchasing of firearms of people that were deemed unfit (Vitali 1). “‘Republicans always say we don’t need new gun laws, we just need to enforce the laws already on the books. But the bill signed into law today undermines enforcement of existing laws that Congress passed to make sure the background check system had complete information,’” as said by Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the leading gun control advocates in Congress (Vitale 1).

Individuals with mental illness should not be able to purchase firearms. Jason Matejkowski explains, in his article entitled, “Exploring the Potential of Stricter Gun Restrictions for People with Serious Mental Illness to Reduce Homicide in the United States,” how individuals with mental illness are now limited to purchasing firearms due to mass shootings: “Recent mass shootings at the hands of individuals purported to have a serious mental illness (SMI) have motivated efforts to reduce gun deaths in the US by further limiting access to firearms by individuals with a current or historical mental health problem” (363). In addition, “With regard to relevant firearm laws, both federal and state laws forbid the selling or disposal of firearms and ammunition to an individual who ‘has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution’ or is ‘mentally incompetent’” (363). To reduce the number of deaths that occur each year, there should be stricter laws about who can purchase firearms.

Guns are not the problem the people that wield them are. “Levels of violent crime have been receding in America in recent years, so guns can’t really be a problem.”(Gopnik) Everyone does not have the mindset of being violent. The people that do partake in violence are sometimes paranoid and hate-filled. Even though some people are mentally ill that does not mean that everyone should be deprived of their rights in the Constitution.

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).

In the article, “The ban on mentally ill people buying guns wasn't ever based on evidence”, Jeffery Swanson states that “the mentally ill are no more dangerous to others” when they have equal access to guns. Also according to public behavioral health system, the severe mentally ill were no more likely to harm others (about 213 vs. 217 gun crimes per 100,000 people per year) This means that 213 normal people use a gun to harm others while 217 mentally ill used a gun to harm another. This shows that there is no point of restricting guns from the mentally ill if the mentally ill are no more dangerous than normal people. If the U.S. want to reduce the number of innocent killings, then guns should be restricted from

Mental health and mass shootings seem to go hand in hand, especially when the talk of gun laws comes up.The debate about gun laws getting stricter due to the mass shootings across the country has been stewing for about 18 years now. What sparked the debate was back in 1999, Columbine High School was involved in a mass shooting killing 12. This is one of the many examples that could define the gun violence and mass shootings in our country. As there seems to be a direct correlation between gun violence and mental illness.Now rather than enforcing stricter gun laws in the wake of recent gun violence events, the federal government should fund mental health programs.

According to the NCIPC “In 1994, there were 38,505 firearm-related deaths. These included: more than 17,800 homicides; more than 18,700 suicides; more than 1,300 unintentional, firearms-related deaths related to firearms” (Facts 1). Some of the worst crimes are committed with guns. For example, the shooting at Columbine which Americans heard about on the news in 1999. Two teenagers shot and killed twelve students and one teacher at their own school (Facts 1). The boys were later thought to be mentally ill, as with many of the people who commit shooting such as this. Could this have been prevented through gun laws that require stricter background checks and better mental health check ups? In an article by Craig R Whitney, he quotes LaPierre from NBC, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed. We have no national database of these lunatics” (Whitney 1). So many suicides and homicides could be prevented with government mandated mental

“Overall, mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent 1 percent of all gun homicides each year”(Qui, Linda, et al 2). Other things like banning assault weapons and not allowing violent convicted criminals to buy guns can also be a measure that may improve gun violence. There are also red flag laws that can put a temporary gun restraining order on person’s weapon if there are reports of violent and dangerous behavior. These laws are a way for law enforcement and families to intervene before mass tragedies

“Humanity… All of my suffering on this world has been at the hands of humanity, particularly women. It has made me realize just how brutal and twisted humanity is as a species. All I ever wanted was to fit in and live a happy life amongst humanity, but I was cast out and rejected, forced to endure an existence of loneliness and insignificance, all because the females of the human species were incapable of seeing the value in me. This is the story of how I, Elliot Rodger, came to be. This is the story of my entire life. It is a dark story of sadness, anger, and hatred. It is a story of a war against cruel injustice…This tragedy did not have to happen. I didn’t want things to turn out this way, but humanity forced my hand, and this story will explain why (Blum, & Jaworski, 2016, p. 408). These were the words of Elliot Rodger before killing six people and injuring fourteen at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mass shootings have occurred with increasing regularity in the United States. Mass shootings are violent incidents that involve firearms with multiple people ending up dead or injured. In the United States, the subject of mass shootings inspires strong debates about various issues leading to such incidents such as guns, mental health, and media and how it influences violence. The proposal for this problem revolves around controlling gun ownership a sensitive topic, addressing mental health, and minimizing interactive violence in the media.

In the past year, even in the past few weeks, there have been drastic shootings and events where guns have caused an immense amount of suffrage. America should have stricter gun enforcement in order for the citizens to be safer. Many of these mass shootings occur because just about any adult has the right to buy a gun, including people who have mental illnesses. Because of this, America needs to have stricter gun control laws. If one wants to buy a gun, they should have to go through a strict background check, thorough training, and be tested for any form of mental disorder to see if they are capable of handling a weapon. Instilling gun control laws will prevent many of the mass shootings that happened in the past, create a safer environment for the citizens of the united states, and give the victims of past mass shootings a sense of closure and relief. Without gun control laws set in place, history will unfortunately, repeat itself.

Ever wondered how the debate over gun control first started? The origin of this controversy originated from the tragic Cleveland Elementary School shooting. The shooting had taken place in Stockton, California on January 17, 1989. The perpetrator was a twenty four year old caucasian male named Patrick Edward Purdy. Purdy had driven to the back of the school wearing a flak jacket, to protect himself from any bullets intended to discharge at him, and armed with a Type 56 assault rifle and a pistol. Once he arrived at the premises, he exited his car and proceeded to pour gasoline all over his vehicle and set it on fire. However, his car contained fireworks, leading to a tremendously loud explosion. Around noon, that was when hell broke loose as Purdy paced his way to the school yard and began firing at the children. Purdy launched 106 rounds of bullets in three minutes, as he shot one teacher and thirty-four children, five of them later announced as deceased. Minutes later, Purdy shot himself in the head with his pistol, ending the chaos that had concurred (Netzley 1). This conflicted event brought uproar, leading many people to began questioning the rights of firearms, and whether or not more laws should be requested. More regulation would subsist gun holders from harming other people, as well as straightening out the misguidance of it being a safety measure, and taking into consideration of the other gun owners wanting better gun restriction.

In Chicago, when turning on the news on a Friday night there is this special called Weekly Death Toll. Typically, every state has this program. Notwithstanding the special Chicago news channels such as WGN- TV, ABC7 Chicago, and CBS Chicago, take the death toll to a whole new level. On a weekly basis, there are measurably twelve-gun homicides and after averaging that settles to seven hundred and sixty-two murdered in Chicago yearly. Nonetheless, those are only murders, not counting the four thousand three hundred and thirty-one shootings in Chicago. Makes one think, “How are these murderers getting guns?”, or “Why are they even allowed to have a gun? What are the police doing?”. Despite the fact, most gun lobbyist of the United States have argued that the current gun control laws are fixing the growing gun violence, closer examination reveals that a longer waiting period for gun ownership and higher taxes on bullets can properly restore the faith in American humanity by decreasing our appalling gun violence.

People have been pushing for a more background checks and calling for convicted domestic abusers to not be allowed guns. The Daily Caller reported that there is in fact already such a law in place. In 1996 there was a federal law passed that prohibits people who have been charged with domestic violence from purchasing or possessing guns. In 2016 the Supreme Court upheld this law. Gun control is a touchy subject, and I personally feel that the laws that the government enacts can always be circumvented. For example, this Devin Kelley should never have been allowed to buy a gun, and yet he did. The increase in recent years of mass shootings is not due to a more readily available supply of guns and ammo or laxer laws, rather it is the people. These nut jobs are the crux of the problem, and I don’t have a solution to fail safely prevent mentally disturbed persons from acquiring guns. That being said, I do think that laws are effective, although not foal proof. I’m confident that there has been several shooting prevented by denying certain persons guns, and that’s why I’m for gun control laws.