Persuasive Essay On Gun Control

School should be a place of peace and opportunity, but gaps in the system of gun control threatens the safety of faculty and students. School shootings have killed a total of 297 lives, young and old (Slate Magazine). Gun control has been a continuous nationwide debate for many years. It seems that no one wants to take a stance against guns unless they are personally affected. In order to take control of the matter and prevent more incidents from continuing schools need to change. To achieve a safe environment in schools need to educate faculty, safe and students, heighten security, and assess mental health issues.

What makes gun control reform even more difficult is that many Democrats themselves can’t support gun control without risking their seats. Many representatives or senators come from districts and states that vote Democrat for different reasons, such as union strength in the Midwest or rising immigration numbers in the Southwest. However, states like Wisconsin, Florida, or New Mexico also are strong supporters of guns, putting Democratic lawmakers in a precarious position (Scher 2017). This split in the party makes it nigh on impossible for bills to get anywhere. Indeed we saw this to be true after the Sandy Hook shooting. Senator Dianne Feinstein has been a passionate advocate for gun control nearly her entire tenure as a Senator, becoming one of the leading Democratic senators in the push for gun control (Friedman 2013). Feinstein represents a state where gun control measures such as assault weapons bans are extremely popular (California), so there is no constituent fear from her to back off gun control (Wheaton 2017). After the Sandy Hook shooting, Senator Feinstein introduced a new Assault Weapons bill to replace the previous one which had expired in 2004. It made the sale, manufacture, or transfer of 150 semi-automatic weapons illegal, which had features like magazine releases and thumbhole stocks, restricted large capacity magazines, and used a one feature test to determine whether or not a gun was an assault weapon (Feinstien 2013). Democratic majority leader Harry

Gun control laws do not deter crime; gun ownership deters crime. A Nov. 26, 2013 study found that, between 1980 and 2009, "assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level" and "states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders." While gun ownership doubled in the twentieth century, the murder rate decreased. John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, stated, "States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes... The effect on 'shall-issue' [concealed gun] laws on these crimes [where two or more people were killed] has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent and injuries by 82 percent." A Dec. 10, 2014 Pew survey found that 57% of people believe that owning a gun protects

Every day in America an average of 93 are killed people due to gun violence. One of the biggest concerns today in American policy is gun control. This is a very controversial and complicated topic for both pro-gun and anti-gun supporters. American policy makers need to make it harder for the wrong people to obtain firearms and the fact that Second Amendment and gun control can co-exist. Mental illness constantly emerges in relation to mass shootings and shooters a like, as well as day to day homicides and suicides. America doesn’t necessarily have more crime then other developed countries the crime is just much more lethal. Right-wing Republicans constantly use the Second Amendment as shield to use firearms, the fact is the document is

Gun control should not exist at all in the United States. Mass shootings have almost become seen as normal event in the United States. What people do not understand is that gun control is not the answer; there are countries with little to no control that have fewer shootings. According to The Washington Post,Finland is ranked number 4 in countries with the most guns despite that they only had 24 homicides by firearm (“Gun homicides and ownership by countries” n.pag.) . In the article Did Gun Control Work In Australia “it is shown that gun control has reduced the problems but it still has not completely got rid of all firearm deaths”(Matthews n.pag.). The number of murders, homicides, or suicides do not go up due to people just owning more guns. Clayton Perry, a staff writer at the University of Maine, even points out “Stricter gun laws were in place during the Assault Weapons Ban between 1994 and 2004, but that didn't stop the shooters at Columbine in 1999 ”(Perry n. pag.). In Iceland, thirty out of a hundred people own a gun and they have zero homicides caused by guns a year(“Gun Homicides and ownership by country” n. pag.). In this day and age, everything is unpredictable, guns are a form of protection for everyone and there should not be restrictions on protection. The U.S. Department of Justice released a data brief that states, “ On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property”(Rand BJS Statistician n. pag.). The National Sheriffs Association released that the average police response time is at eighteen minutes while the average school shooting only last twelve minutes (“Embracing Technology To Decrease Response Time” n. pag.). Gun control should not exist because other countries do fine without it , high gun ownership has no link with increasing death rates , and guns are not harmful when instructions are followed.

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.

This country has a mental health issue. We don't want to talk about it because it makes us look vulnerable. There is no law that can fix this, you could literally go door to door and take every single firearm in this country and we would still see tragedies like this occurring. We have a shit ton of people in this country and people like to kill each other, it's just the way this works for some reason. The reality of it is this; these public shooters are more or less a statistical anomaly. They're comparatively rare in a country where people constantly use illegally-acquired firearms to commit murders every day.

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.

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

October, 1st 2017 has marked the latest in a now all too familiar trend of tragedies; a mass killing of civilians by a sick individual. In the wake of this tragedy, there is a mass of human emotion, grief, anger, sadness, and a demand for justice to right what has been wronged. In looking for justice, one needs an antagonist to blame, in this case an object, the gun. While it is true that firearms are the weapon of choice for many violent tragedies across the United States, will a ban on firearms truly solve the problem of violence for the country? Although a firearm ban may seem like a preventative for violence in the United States, a comparison of violent crime in other countries with varying levels of gun control, the lack of

“A series of terror attacks that killed more than 120 people, ISIS claimed responsibility for the horrific Paris attacks,” (Castillo and et. al.). Even though more guns will give more chances of murders, will more gun control laws stop people by getting them, will we be safer without legal guns, and why should we give up our right to bear arms.

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).

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,