Persuasive Essay On Gun Control

People with mental illnesses are referred to a wide range of mental health conditions disorders that affect your mood, thinking, and behavior. Examples like Autism, Anxiety Issues, and many more that affect them. It is so easy for anyone to get guns. About over 300 million have been made and sold to people in 2012, so there is a large supply of them. (My Turn: Should People with Mental Illnesses Own Guns?”, 2015). You can easily get one by just bribing a stranger or from a family member so it’s very easy to get one. There should be stricter gun control laws for those individuals with a mental illness history because guns are falling into the hands of people whose actions are unpredictable, research shows that many of the crimes committed are by those with a known mental illness, and the current wait time for owning a gun allows people with a mental illness to act without seeking help first.

After recent tragic events, such as the mass shooting that took place at a musical festival in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 1st, 2017, which left over 50 people dead, and over 500 others injured (Bui, Zapotosky and Barrett), the topic of stricter gun controls in America has become a controversial topic for many people in our society. Those in favor of stricter gun controls believe that by implementing laws that would make it more difficult for the average person to purchase and own guns, the result would be a decreased number of mass shootings and other gun deaths in our country. Typically, with these proposed laws, it is suggested that potential gun owners should be required to undergo mental health screening, in addition to regular background checks to see if the person has a history of any mental illnesses or past crimes. However, reducing the number of mass shootings and other gun deaths in America is not as simple as just implementing new laws.

Some of the guns used in these shootings were purchased illegally, but in most cases, such as the Virginia Tech shooting, they were purchased legally (Griffin). In order to buy guns legally the stores must run a background check on the person, and currently there is no way of knowing if the person suffers from a mental illness especially if the person has never gone to a doctor for it. While the background checks are necessary they are not all that helpful because most of the crimes committed with guns involve guns that were purchased illegally. The people who are buying guns legally are typically purchasing them for self and home protection These people will most likely only shoot their guns at a range. Surveys of inmates have shown that if they thought that there was a gun in a house they would avoid it. If there were better means of stopping illegal guns the number of crimes committed with guns would drop

People who have mental illness can find ways to access these weapons; which can lead to murder, crime, and destruction. For instance, a senior English major Seung-Hui Cho was allowed to purchase bullets and a nine millimeter Glock 19 pistol from a firearms store in Roanoke Virginia. Considering Cho had a background history of a mental illness, which should have became known in a background check, he was still allowed to purchase this dangerous weapon. On April 19, 2007, Cho had shot and thirty two staff members and students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg (The Assault Weapons Ban). The students who went to school were not expecting someone to show up and start to kill innocent people. Now, families whose loved ones were killed in this horrific incident, left an indelible mark on their hearts because, the thought of not having their loved ones on this earth anymore is unbearable. Imagine having to lose a beloved family member who has been killed in a mass shooting. This horrific incident proves that these weapons need to be banned in order to ensure that they do not end up in the hands of the wrong people. Danger would be dispersed amongst the citizens of the United States if these weapons end up in the wrong

There are many rules and regulations that are made out to follow for those carrying these weapons. If a person were not emotionally or mentally stable, they would not be allowed to get a permit to carry the weapon with them. You cannot predict the future; an individual can be perfectly stable when purchasing a weapon, but further in time can possibly become unstable due to unforeseen circumstances. Due to these unforeseen circumstances it can make an individual do things that are out of character, which is keeping a gun in an concealed place while in public can be problematic. One person’s personal problem can lead to taking the life of another, as described in the media, during mass shootings, or “parking lot” confrontations. The public safety in general should never be compromised under any circumstances.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun (Hauser 1). Thus, under said federal law, Cho should have been denied from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be an “imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness” in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment (Hauser 1). “The

Many states do not have background checks and or they are very loose and easy to workaround. Known as the “gun show loophole”, the majority of states do not require background checks for firearms purchased at gun shows from private individuals ("Gun Show Background Checks State Laws"). In the states that require background checks, there are forty-eight percent less firearm suicides and seventeen percent less fewer aggravated firearm assaults. Moreover, Background checks need to be more advanced and annual. The United States is usually not strict about checking for mental illnesses in the people who are purchasing guns and are not regularly checking up on the people who already purchased guns. According to Nicholas Keene, “huge gaps exist in the database, which is called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. For example, the Virginia Tech shooter, who killed thirty three people and himself in 2007, had passed two background checks because Virginia didn’t submit his mentally ill status to the database.( “Universal background check, What does it mean”) . Most of the states in the United States do not check if people who are purchasing guns are mentally ill which endangers the client and other citizens. Furthermore, Background checks need to be more persistent after someone buys a gun. Once the person has the access to buy a gun and passed a background check they are permitted to

A full background investigation is needed if a person desires to own a firearm. Some people may believe a person with mental illness would warrant them from not receiving a license to

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.

n the U.S. gun violence is becoming a very critical issue as death tolls increase. In 2015, the Unites States had an average of one mass shooting per day, meaning there have been no shootings in which four or more people have been killed by a single gunman. As hundreds of people die each year from gun violence, strengthening the United States gun laws in becoming a necessity to reduce violence, as done in other countries; however, because of the belief that mental illness is the primary cause of gun violence, political lobbying, and the Second Amendment, passing these laws may prove very challenging.

Gun owners are not of one race, religion or cultural background therefore, not one person can say who should have gun rights and where there should be gun control. Gun control should be a world-wide issue looked at from different perspectives. Who is to say what race or religion should own a gun and what race or religion shouldn’t have gun rights because even the people that have clear background checks and no prior issues with the laws, but with a flip of a switch something can trigger rage within them and they can go out and harm innocent people. We will never understand why this happens or what sets them off. Mental illness is most likely a start of why people lose control, but mental illness is easy to hide while purchasing a gun. There is no screening for mental illness prior to allowing a person to purchase a gun. There is, however a background check, but most of those are to make sure that the person doesn’t have any prior issues with the law that would stop them from being able to purchase a gun.

Even with the most open laws, there are still a numerous amount of people that may not possess firearms. These reasons keep the American people safe from anybody that might use these weapons for an unsafe use. Already this year Trump has signed a form “Trump signed legislation on Feb. 28 reversing an executive action by former President Barack Obama designed to keep guns out of the hands of about 75,000 mentally disabled Social Security recipients.”(McLeod "Gun Control."). This law states that the mentally unstable may not carry a gun with them due to their state of mind. There are many other reasons that a person may not have a gun, such as “The physical inability to handle a firearm safely, A felony conviction, Being a fugitive from justice.” (“Florida”).

The language of federal gun laws restricts ownership to people who are unable to manage their own affairs due to "marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease” – which could potentially affect a large group within Social Security, the LA Times reported.

There is no question, of course, that guns are used in numerous murders, suicides and accidental deaths in today’s society. Yet, the impacts of the Gun Control have left the U.S deeply divided into two groups, those who are banned from legally having a gun due to their criminal record or other disqualifying circumstances and everyone else who have a firearm in their name. The vast majority of the adult public is allowed to obtain and have a firearms they want, thus preserving the personal right to “keep and bear arms” that has been established by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. But that right, like all rights, has limits. People with serious criminal records or severe mental illness may reasonably be deemed at such high risk of misusing firearms that raised a public-safety alarm which should always take priority over gun rights. While in practice it is impossible to keep all members of high-risk groups disarmed in a gun-rich environment, a selective prohibition may cause some reduction in gun misuse and save enough lives to be worthwhile.

First, we institute a mental background check in the process of purchasing a gun. As we have come to know, the man behind the recent school shooting had mental health issues and consequently, his mother had died a few months earlier; he should never have been able to purchase a firearm.