Persuasive Essay On Gun Control

Every so often the media and news feeds flood with reports of a mass shooting. Families mourn. In the days that follow, calls to action can be heard, and there is a demand for change. Sometimes minor legislation passes, but in the United States extreme change is rarely seen. Other developed nations provide an opposite comparison. Following the Port Arthur shooting in Australia and the shooting in Great Britain, both countries organized for significant gun reform.

According to Nicholas Kristof’s article “our blind spot about guns” gun control is a lot like cars regulation such that if we can regulate cars we can regulate guns. It took a lot of time and effort but thanks to regulations cars are safer than they were many years ago, and the same is very possible with guns. We need to keep our country safe. The first steps to gun control are improving on background checks and also requiring trigger locks on all guns.

October 1, 2017 marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. With almost 500 injured and 58 killed, not only did Las Vegas feel the tragedy of a personal loss, but the incident had rippling effects that shook all of America (Flaherty). With the fresh wounds of the recent Las Vegas shooting, politician's initial reaction is to implement more strict gun restrictions and "lay down the law" to prevent a similar event from happening again. Due to the drastic laws being carried out, the topic of gun control is a current issue in society. Is the solution to implement more firm restrictions on gun ownership or can the government allow the people to be their own advocates? While the opposing views of pro-gun restrictions argue that is up to the discretion of the government, they are often narrow-minded resolutions with no hope to finding a real solution. This particular shooter obtained his guns legally and passed all background checks, going unnoticed until his plan unfolded. Establishing more strict firearm restrictions would not have stopped the Las Vegas shooting from occurring. The number of gun restrictions can not increase, the government needs to either fix the existing laws or do away with gun restrictions entirely. Gun restrictions are not the solution because guns are not doing the killing--people are, the laws only attack the law-abiding citizens, and the gun restrictions add another infringed upon right that the government controls. While voting against additional gun rules will not completely eliminate the controversy behind this topic, voting against these laws will be a milestone to regaining the rights we have already been promised.

According to History.com,“the Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in [the] U.S.”. Recalling from this incident, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had planned this attack months prior. The two had originally planned bombing the school, but they failed to do so. Because their original plan backfired, they

From 1988 to 2001, the usage of anti-depressant drugs in the general public increased by four-hundred percent (Swanson). The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary took place in December of 2012, and during 2014, firearms were used in 88 percent of teen homicides, and 41 percent of teen suicides (“Suicidal Teens”). On February 28th, 2017, the Trump administration repealed a firearms regulation that prevented mentally disabled persons from owning guns. At the same time, teenage mental illness is on the rise, specifically in cases of depression and anxiety. A report from the Surgeon General shows that over 90 percent of adolescents that committed either suicide or homicide have or had a mental disability. Mental disabilities such as depression and anxiety put teenagers at a high risk for homicides and suicides. Teenagers who are stressed due to school, lack of parenting, puberty, bullying, and other factors can develop depression, anxiety or another mental illness. Allowing these teens easy access to firearms proves time and time again to be very dangerous. In some cases, the families of these teens have never been assessed to see if they can responsibly store firearms. The only background check performed is on the owner of the firearm, meaning that a person may own the weapon even if another family member living with them legally cannot. Loose gun control laws allow families with physiologically ill children to have access to firearms, without first checking to see if the disabled children in the home are responsible enough to be around said firearms. Repealing gun control laws instated by the Obama administration will cause an increase in adolescent firearm-related homicides, suicides, and tragedies similar to the one at Sandy Hook Elementary.

On October 1st 2017, Steven Paddock shot and killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over the course of 12 minutes, Paddock committed the worst mass shooting in modern American history. We must honor the victims and respect their memory, but we have to ask ourselves what we will do to prevent this in the future. The first and completely valid response to that question is enacting stricter gun control, but there is much more than that. We can increase funding for mental health treatment, we can take stricter security measures at hotels and concerts, however there is something major that needs to be changed that hardly ever gets talked about. It’s something that we are used to, that we have seen all throughout our

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and leaving 17 injured at Virginia Tech. On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza went on a shooting spree in Newtown, Connecticut, killing his mother before shooting 20 1st graders and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary. On June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 58 others. Most recently on October 1, 2017, 58 people were killed and another 489 injured when Stephen Paddock fired onto the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. Many more mass shootings have happened where more innocent people have lost their lives. Gun control has been in debate for some period, some people advocate for it while others dissuade it. Now more than ever, changes must be made to better protect people from losing their lives to a shooter. To prevent future tragedies in the United States, there should be stricter gun laws enforcing a more advance psychological test, imposing a federal gun license, and have a 1 month waiting period to receive the gun.

Raise your hand if you have ever been victimized by a gun or know someone who has lost their life due to a firearm. Realize that if gun control laws in the united states were more strictly enforced a lot less of us will be raising our hands right now. The United States has a problem with gun violence. Great mass shootings and also school shootings have occurred in the past few years, bringing a great grief to America. Parents are scared to send their children to school or even attend any type of event due to these horrific events that have happened. Some Americans even want to ban the right to bear arms.

Gun control for who? Given the recent tragedy in Las Vegas, Nevada, where a lone gunman killed over 50 people and injured hundreds, the discussion of gun rights a dispute in the country’s storied culture wars will fail in any substantial changes to current laws. While I strongly dislike hearing of senseless deaths, especially when they seem preventable with proper legislation, however I know of gun control problematic racist past; not everything is black or white.

Imagine a woman being stalked by a predator outside of her home. Over a few days, she tells the police and files a report, but the problem persists. She fears for her life and tries to find a way to protect herself and her loved one. As a last resort, she travels to her local gun store because she needs to buy a gun for her safety. Unfortunately, the cashier explains that she’ll need to wait for her gun because there is a waiting period to receive her firearm. She begs and pleads and tells the cashier her situation and all the things she has tried, but the man can’t break the law for her. Reluctantly, she gives in and heads back to her unsafe home, only to be later assaulted and killed before her weapon could get to her in time. This type of situation happens unfortunately to some people, and it is because gun control laws have implemented waiting periods to receive your weapon. But that however, is just one of the many gun control laws that should be abolished in order to take a step forward towards a better society.

Over the past two decades, rising gun control controversy among the American people alters the way Americans foresee firearms. Even today, controversies continue. The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights states that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (Brooks np)." In January of 2016, Obama announced his gun control plan. His plan would more strictly enforce current laws, including firearms (Smith np). People deserve the right to have firearms for the ability to protect, defend, and entertain themselves and others. The way people obtain information about firearms is the biggest controversy among the American people. The thought that "guns kill people," influences people, when in all reality, they need to understand that "people kill people." Although there are around 10,000 people killed in the United States each year from firearms, guns are not the primary conflict in the killings, the people behind the guns are (Brooks np).

Devin P. Kelley committed a mass shooting at a local Texas church. He was discharge from the Navy because he tried to kill his commanding officers. Devin P. Kelley escaped from a mental institution and was charged with domestic abuse,multiple misdemeanors and of mistreatment, neglect or cruelty to animals, and yet he was able to buy four guns legally (Rosenberg). That is the most recent example of why Americans need more gun control laws. Guns are not cool or makes you look good, they are a dangerous piece of machinery that Americans take advantage of. The average American in the right mindset should not want to own anything more than one handgun or rifle for hunting or protecting their household. Gun control reform that limits gun

In the wake of the shooting in Las Vegas this year, there have been more tension around gun-control than ever. This shooting has inspired a new wave of people to argue over whether or not the United States needs new gun laws, one side argues that we need more restrictions on the owning of guns, the other side that it's a citizen's right to own a gun and to take that away is unconstitutional. In this paper, I will first give a rundown of the history of laws concerning gun control, then I will talk about whether or not America should pass more gun laws then I will address how this relates to previous cases involving gun control.

It is widely agreed that the United States has a very large number of guns compared to other countries. If guns really keep Americans safe, the United States would be the safest place in the world since it is estimated that 270 million firearms are owned. Compared to the world richest nations, the United States has the highest gun accidents, murders, and suicides among them all. An investigative report conducted in 2012 by Mother Jones Magazine found that between 1995 and 2012, the number of guns has increased by 50% while the population has increased only by 20% (Doeden). Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of injury death in the United States. In 2010, the percentage of homicides committed by firearms was 67.5 percent. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimated 97,820 people are shot and killed in the United States yearly, averaging 268 people per day, since 1972 (Newhard pp13). Unfortunately, with some many Americans killed by guns every day, shootings in the United States have become so common, many citizens have grown immune to the news.

Gun control. It has been a very controversial topic for many years, more recently with the Las Vegas shooting. Some think we should put into place more laws to ban the buying and/or selling of firearms. Some think guns aren’t the problem, but rather the person pulling the trigger. Gun control is defined as the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.. I think the 2nd Amendment right to self-protection and defense of liberty should be granted to all those eligible ( legal age, no criminal history, nonviolent background, etc). New laws would not only affect those who oppose firearms, but especially those who rely on it for protection. Those who are pro gun control believe if we put more restrictions into effect then the death rates would decrease and the likelihood of a mass shooting would decrease as well. Stricter gun control laws will not decrease the criminal element in society, but rather would take away from law abiding citizens.