Guns and Violence Essay

According to a report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, the United States has about 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns and has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. With no restriction and so much freedom, firearms can be distributed throughout the United States illegally and obtained as easy as buying it from a person, disregarding all gun laws. Implementing stricter background checks can help reduce the amount of crime relating to gun violence. It can also keep firearms away from those who shouldn’t have possession of them.

There are roughly 32,000 gun deaths per year in the United States. Around 60% of these crimes are gang related. In discussion of gun violence, a controversial issue is whether gun related crimes are blamed on the person who owned the gun or by the illegal gun purchase. While some people believe gun violence should be blamed on the people that cause the violence, others contend that gun violence should be blamed on the way people receive their gun. When I was younger and uninformed, I thought gun purchases are effective and legal. I failed to notice that guns the purchase of the gun itself is being conducted informally, which leads to people also trading their guns illegally. Between informal gun purchases and illegal gun trading, this also leads to gang related gun violence.

The majority of gun crimes are committed with handguns and assault riffles. Assault riffles should be banned from retail all together, and there should be a more detailed process when purchasing handguns. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act requires purchasers to complete a background check and a five day waiting period before they are allowed to purchase a gun. This seems to help so that we aren’t putting guns into criminal’s hands straight from the store, but it is not an overall solution. (www.nraila.org)

Also, many people obtain guns from stealing it from another person, or buying it off a citizen who is unknowledgable or uncaring for the law, or the temperment of the buyer. Besides, if a person who is of age, and has a clear record wishes to buy a gun to be violent with it, there is no way of preventing him or her.

40% of all guns sold are sold by unlicensed sellers (“Children’s Defense Fund”). Criminals can easily obtain guns from these sellers. The criminal responsible for the Aurora shooting, bout 6,000 rounds of ammunition illegally over the internet over a course of 60 days (Miller). Why would you want this much illegal ammunition to be purchased? The answer is: you wouldn’t.

The right as an American to own a firearm has always been apart of our history. However, recent events have put into the question the second amendment and whether or not it still holds any real purpose in our society. Gun violence has constantly occurred throughout our history and has always been a problem to end. It wasn’t until recent that activists became so passionate about enforcing stricter gun laws or abolishing the second amendment all together. What would cause such a drastic upheaval? The answer to that is, constant reoccurrence of mass shootings all over the country, including ones involving young children. Once children started becoming casualties of these horrific events, society really felt obligated to try and do something

Over the last years gun control has become a very widely debated topic. The city, county and state lawmakers seem to be having different stands about the public having easy access to guns. Adam Small states, “After centuries of relative obscurity, the Second Amendment has become the center of an intense academic and legal battle during the last twenty years” (1213). The supporters of gun control and its opponents both claim to have the best interest of this country’s citizens .However, there are private citizens who believe that there should be laws to limit the number of people who own a gun. Even though the United States has enacted laws for regulating firearms, the recent shootings at Aurora movie theatre and Sandy

In the same way that a hunter’s safety course must be taken in order to receive a hunting license, a general gun safety course should be required in the event of a purchase of any gun. Nicole Hockley stated, "Do something before facing fatalities." This is showing how involving a general gun safety course to our society would be decreasing the amount of deaths we would have, making us feel more heroic. In reality, it is better to do something than just sitting with your hands, cross behind your back, and seeing how innocent lives are disappearing. The safety course must be strictly taken in person, as an online course could potentially become a scam. This will ensure that a person is fully qualified to own a gun. The safety course could include topics such as proper handling of the weapon, the immorality of killing a fellow human, and how to properly secure a gun against theft, among other things. The idea behind taking this course is that it would weed out those who wish to purchase a gun for foolish or violent reasons. By lengthening the process of the purchase with a gun safety course, guns will be less likely to fall into the wrong hands. For example, as George O’Malley mention, “Many people can just walk into a gun store and, after signing what they need, walk out with a weapon with the ability to kill. The people at the store who sell guns do not even notice if they are legible to carry a weapon.” It will also ensure that gun owners have

To start with, training and licensing should be mandatory for any individual looking to purchase and shoot a firearm. Accidental deaths due to guns is a very prominent thing in America and the main cause behind this is because of untrained gun owners and untaught children. Here is a devastating story that show how untrained gun owners and arrogant children are a deadly combination: “Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth” (Luo & McIntire, 2013). The father in this story should never

In the African American community, 83 percent of homicides are due to gun violence. In black communities gun violence is commonly misunderstood as gang affiliation, which is false. Studies show over 50 percent of gun crimes committed were not related to a felony, but were due to some disagreement. The gun epidemic in predominantly black communities aren’t just disagreements, but race wars, police brutality, gang related, and even no reason at all.

Because of easy access to get a gun, gun violence has become an increasing problem in the southern states in America, so I plan to improve this issue by influencing my peers via sharing my thoughts, and advocating for stronger background checks when trying to purchase firearms and gun-related equipment.The plan is to bring the attention of this issue to adults who are capable of taking my ideas further to make a difference. Once there is a large group of supports, the importance of strengthening gun background checks will become evident. The targeted group to focus on for this situation are parents, teenagers (those allowed to vote, like seniors), and other people who could influence the government. Specifically, I will inform my church members,

Guns are a deadly weapon, and should be used with caution. This is why there are gun control laws. The methods of gun control at present consist of the government restricting the ability of individual citizens to purchase weapons. The different types of gun control vary from waiting periods between when you purchase the gun and when you actually get it, background checks so that high-risk people can't purchase guns through legal channels, and completely banning certain types of guns. There are countless ways for criminals to avoid these government regulations, causing them to only render the ability of innocent citizens protecting their home and family's ability to purchase guns. The "waiting period" method of gun control is basically a two-step process. The first step in the procedure is that the person wanting a gun goes to his local shop to place the initial order. Then, he must wait one to two weeks while the government performs a small background check for past criminal activities, disorderly conduct, or lack of mental/emotional stability.3 During this time, if the purchaser of the gun wanted the gun for impulse reasons, it is hoped that they will not still want to cause harm after a couple weeks. Unfortunately, underage buyers

There is a wide assortment of regulations in various states to permit firearms approval. For instance, more than 66% of gun utilized as a part of a crime was in New York City - which is in a

Everyday 93 Americans are killed by guns. Whether it is due to homicide or suicide, it does not matter. At the end of the day gun violence is increasing exponentially. In numerous states, gun laws have been placed in the hopes of reducing gun violence. But now many people believe that gun violence should be treated as a public health problem. I for one feel that gun violence should be put in the category of public health. Every year more than 30,000 people are victims to gun related incidents. It has become such an issue that gun violence is causing more deaths than some life threatening diseases.

Every day 297 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings, and police intervention. Everyday 89 people die from gun violence, 31 of those people are murdered. Today I'm going to be talking about the social justice issue of gun violence. Gun violence, death and injury from firearms is a major issue in all parts of our world. Gun violence continues to affect young people, lower-income people, and communities of color. This social justice and public health issue occurs in places all over the world, however it has become such an epidemic in the United States that it will result in gun violence being one of the main topics in the 2016 presidential election. There are many causes for gun violence, for example, in this day and age pop culture influence is the greatest cause of gun violence. Guns have also became more accessible and easy to obtain. Poor identification and treatment of mentally ill people is another significant cause for gun violence.