. Understand that it’s not always about why the gun was pulled, but how it was used after it was pulled. Having a gun strapped to their side makes it easier to access, but that is a problem because if they are angered who is to say that the gun won’t be the first thing they resort to. 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 backgrounds 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. Gun control would be a hard thing to establish today because many people sell guns not just stores. There are people on Facebook that sell guns and they are in fact not considering anyone to
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.
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
The guilty party from the Virginia Tech University shooting in 2007 was found out to have a mental illness (“Gun Control”). This mass shooting was an incident that inspired more discussion on this topic, for it was one of the most deadly ones in American history. “His history of mental illness had not prevented him from purchasing the semiautomatic pistols used in the shooting” (“Gun Control”). If this man could gain access to these weapons, then other mentally ill people could as well. Consequently, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was carried out by another person suffering from mental illnesses (“Gun Control”). Even more awareness was drawn to this shooting since it was yet another incident of a mentally ill person carrying out these acts of violence. After this shooting, Barack Obama tried to pass a bill that would ban assault weapons from the public and make the background checks more extensive to include history of mental illness, yet despite his efforts, this bail failed to pass the Senate (“Gun Control”). If mentally ill people were restricted access to guns, these shootings would not have
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
Today I saw a story on the news, about a 22-year old boy in California who went on a murder-spree and killed 6 people before taking his own life. His motive, you ask? Because he was still a virgin. Because he wanted to punish every woman for rejecting him and every sexually-active man for having a better life than he did. But the worst part is that this wasn’t the first time. This wasn’t the first time a person woke up in the morning and decided they were going to take innocent lives because they weren’t happy with their own. 121. That’s the number of attempted mass shootings that haven taken place in the United States this year alone. 475 people murdered and 1 870 injured in 154 days. This is what America’s gun crisis looks like, and this
Gun control is a controversial and important issue all over the world. A gun, as a weapon for defense and protection, has been misused by many resulting in unlawful acts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dedicated protect public health and safety, in 2010, there were roughly 31,670 gun-related deaths in the U.S. About 11,100 were homicides (35%) and about 19,400 (61%) were suicides (Jim). Every day, a lot of people lose their lives unnecessarily to gun violence. Congress should amend gun laws to take guns out from the hand of criminals and irresponsible persons. It is apparent that guns have had both negative and positive outcomes, but it has also
As Americans are proud to be reside in the “land of the free,” our nation is noted to have pride of being able to own and carry a firearm. The right for Americans to bear arms is protected under the second amendment of the United States Constitution. However, this privilege has been taken advantaged of in the recent years. Unfortunately, more than 31,000 Americans die from gunshot wounds(1). Americans wake up to devastating news in relation to gun violence on their tv screen more frequently than before. Even when the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, there is still so many casualties in relation to gun violence(2). These unfortunate deaths raise the question of whether Americans should be restricted from owning firearms. In the United States, the right to own a gun should not be banned and abolished, but be looked into carefully to decrease the mortality rate by guns.
Imagine somebody breaking into your home with the intentions of hurting you and your family and trying to take all your valuables that you own in your house, and not having anything to protect your loved ones. Without the protection of a firearm, the intruder could injure or kill all members within the household easily. In the United States, according to the Bill of Rights, a citizen has the right to bear arms, however, recently people have started to believe that guns only incite violence and therefore gun laws need to be more strict. Although, If you own the firearm for the right reasons and go through the process of having a carrying license, then that is within your rights to protect yourself and be able to own the gun. Therefore,
At 10:08 P.M. on October 1, 2017, the lives of thousands of Americans were suddenly and horrifically altered. Stephen Paddock, armed with rifles altered to achieve fully-automatic fire rates, unleashed an onslaught of lead from his thirty-second-floor balcony. His target was the Los Vegas Strip, where 22,000 people were gathered for the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival. For close to ten minutes Paddock turned what was supposed to be a carefree culmination of the three-day festival into a living hell. When the smoke cleared, 580 people lay on the ground bleeding, of which fifty-eight were dead. The next morning, America awoke to the carnage caused by the worst mass shooting in its history, and true to form, immediately started pointing
Not pull a gun as if you are a law enforcer. It doesn’t make the you any better than the criminal if you pull a gun and resort to violence before you take any other initiative to end the violence. Understand that it’s not always about why the gun was pulled, but how it was used after it was pulled. Having a gun strapped to their side makes it easier to access, but that is a problem because if they are angered, who is to say that the gun won’t be the first thing they resort to.
We all love power don’t we? We love to bring each other down, we love to steal, and most importantly show that we are better than each other. That is why guns were invented in the first place: To show dominance over one and another, to show that I have the right to kill you with this gun because I have the authority, so therefore, I decide when the bullet comes out, I decide who to kill and who to blame it for. Imagine yourself sitting down to a student in your class who brings a gun, which is legalized, because he felt violated by his professor and shoots him right between the eyes. Why? because he was given a grade that he did not expect to receive on the paper he wrote about the legalization of marijuana. The Texas state legislature recently introduced a bill that would allow students to carry concealed firearms on college campuses. With broad support in both the House and the Senate, the bill is soon to become law soon, and Texan students will then be able to bring their guns to class. According to the article, “Gun Control Facts,“ by James D Agresti and Reid K. Smith, based on production data from firearms manufacturers, there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the Unites States as of 2010. Of these, about 100 are handguns.” I never personally liked guns; what is so right about this piece of machinery for which people are willing to put their lives in danger? This is a question of rightness, morality, and value that should be essentially addressed today. No matter how popular guns become there is no need for them in our holy learning environments.
The Second Amendment asserts that you have the right to bear arms, but to what extent? Numerous loopholes now exist that allow for individuals with mental health issues or criminal records to purchase guns. For example, a gun purchased over the internet or from a private vendor at a gun show is exempt from background checks because neither instance does not necessarily require licensed gun sellers. Increasing amounts of gun violence affect citizens of the United States daily and this number will continue to expand until precautions are imposed. Society is culturally embracing violence and becoming willfully blind to the dangers surrounding this civilization. Yes, we have the right to protect our country, and ourselves but from what? It
Actor Samuel Jackson, in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, once stated, “I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life” (Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary) The issue of gun control has become a large problem in the United States. This is because it directly or indirectly affects every single American citizen. There are extremists on both ends: those who want to completely ban and restrict the sales of all firearms, and those who want to be able to stop by a gun store, buy whatever they want, and carry it anywhere. What many people do not realize is that a compromise between the two views would
With all of the recent tragic events involving gun violence the debate between gun control and gun rights has been at an all-time high. The most recent and deadliest example of gun violence in Las Vegas, Nevada being still fresh in peoples’ minds, the San Bernardino attacks in which deadly fully automatic weapons were used, and all of the recent school shootings are all making Americans wonder and debate about the proper response to these events. The majority of Americans are responding by asking the question on how these events can be prevented. Many Americans believe stricter gun control, background checks, or even complete bans on firearms are the solutions to gun violence. Many others believe gun control is not the answer, or the issue is not with guns at all, that maybe the issue lies with our overall mental health of our society, or even putting resources into other means of prevention is the answer.
Historically guns haven’t been a national issue. It is not until relatively recently that an overwhelming amount of people have been in favor of placing stricter laws on the owning of a fire arm. The call for gun control has become more prevalent in the eyes of the government and the people; the gun laws that are also often proposed are irrational and ineffective. One could not simply ban guns, it is comparable to banning a certain genre of music; it’s unachievable and would be a fruitless pursuit. There is irony in the fact that there are already gun control laws in place that if correctly enforced would prevent the conflicts that cause many to be anti-gun. Firearms never prove to be the source of the problem in a shooting either; the