Persuasive Essay On Gun Violence

Since 2013 there have been 268 school shootings in the United States alone (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2017). School gun violence is becoming increasingly probable. It is imperative that our government and our citizens come together to create a solution and implement a plan to prevent and stop the occurrence of school gun violence. The solution, for some, is to bring more guns into the picture by arming teachers, principals, and other school officials, or place armed police officers at school sites (LaPierre, 2015). For others, the solution is to make even stricter laws regarding gun use or to get rid of these weapons altogether. These certainly are drastic options; I must say that I do believe the true solution is to increase the focus on mental health services and by extension, mental health awareness. There is simply not enough focus on the mental health of our youth and of our students. Mental health services are the most important step to making schools safer, because this solution touches the entire problem of violence at its root level.

Do you feel Gun violence has taken a bad effect on taxpayers? I do, because even if your family member hasn’t been shot or killed, it still hurt you in a way. When a person has been killed in a certain state, and the killer is a part of that state. The state happens to give away four Thousand dollars to help cover the funeral costs. If you didn’t know, that’s coming from our taxes. When a person have been shot and wounded, your taxes are being taking and helping paying for medication to keep that person out of pain. Even when the killer gets caught, your taxes will be still be a risk, because killers has to eat too.

A very controversial topic throughout the United States and the world is guns. As American citizens, we have a constitutional right to own a fire arm. But why is a gun so important and why is it such a huge part of the United States division of its people? The division starts with people using this Second Amendment to harm people. In recent years, mass shootings have become the norm for the United States and that outcome is not the purpose of the Second Amendment. These mass shooting happen everywhere from movie theatres to concert halls. But the majority of these mass shootings seem to happen at schools with innocent children aging from kindergarten to high school students. With the deaths of children in school rising, the urge to find a solution and develop prevention tactics have become top priority. Not only limiting the access to guns but finding out the reason behind the shootings will help aid in the fight to stop gun violence in schools.

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.

“Interview the survivors of mass shootings and you hear these phrases a lot: Gunfire, they explain, rarely sounds like what it is… Many who have lived through the terror recall thinking it was a joke. A drill. Anything except the awful truth: that they might have only a few seconds to live” (“Stop the Violence” -Brody 220). Some people say guns make us feel safer, but in reality, they cause more harm than good. Arthur Kellermann and his colleagues concluded that, “Sadly, buying a gun does not make you safer. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that bringing a gun into your home increases the chances you will be killed” (“Feeling safe” -Vyse 27). Gun violence poses a very big threat to the U.S. “The U.S. has many more guns--and gun deaths--than any other developed country. In 2014, there were more than 33,000 such deaths in this country” (“Fight Over” 12). Guns are extremely dangerous and many deaths occur due to them, including murder, suicide, and accidental deaths, so stricter gun laws and technology should be used to decrease the number of gun deaths in the U.S.

The mounting deaths and associated trauma from mass shootings should motivate us to take action to make needed reforms to our gun laws, focus law enforcement resources on combating illegal gun possession and invest in prevention initiatives proven to reduce gun violence. Assault weapons cause more harm than good when they are able to purchased and owned by private citizens. And while most who do own and use these powerful weapons for harmless, recreational activities or a sense of protection, the fact is that when they fall into the hands of individuals who are not mentally sound enough to possess something of such force, the result is one of horrific tragedy. The government must take into consideration the hundreds of innocent people who have lost their lives as a result of these dangerous weapons, and work on ways to prevent

The thought of guns and the ability to commit mass murder is a chilling one. According to the The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, “an average of more than 100,000 people are shot every year in the United States” (Just the Facts: Gun Violence in America). Gun violence in America has reached epidemic proportions, surpassing rates of gun-related violence in other developed, high-income nations by 25 percent (Preidt). There is an urgent need for tighter gun laws in America. (5) In order to put an end to the growing trend of gun violence, the United States needs stricter legislation regarding the purchase and ownership of firearms. Although most gun advocates believe that stricter gun laws would not prevent mass shootings, stricter gun

The Orlando nightclub shooting in Florida on June 12, 2016 was the single largest massacre in U.S history, taking the lives of 50 individuals, including the shooter himself, and injuring 53 others. This is one extreme example of the gun violence that has been occurring in this country, but mass shootings like this and the one at Newton in 2012 are only a small part of our gun violence issue. The everyday gun violence that takes place in cities all across the United States claims the lives of thousands every single year. According to The Guardian, 33,500 civilians die each year because of gun brutality- “that’s about 1 life every 15 minutes” (Beckett). Between the years of 1999 and 2013, there were 464,003 gun deaths in the U.S, about 58% of them were suicides 37% were homicides. (ProCon.org) Gun violence and the consequences of that violence, have become a real and dangerous problem in the U.S , why else would the CDC list the United States as having the highest rate of gun violence out of all developed countries today? (Gale Opposing Viewpoints) This issue is not just attributable to a single factor, there are several that play an important part in why gun violence is such an issue in the U.S, namely laws and poverty; and in these causes we can also find solutions.

In shootings where at least four people were murdered with firearms, fifty-four percent have been committed by intimate partners or family members (Ana Nogales). The atmosphere in which they, the mass shooters, live in plays a pivotal role in not only their life, but the lives of people they may not even know. Between 1990 and 2005, a gun was used to kill over two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims. When domestic violence and assault involve a firearm, statistics show that the result is twelve times as likely to end in a murder than a dispute using bodily force or other weapons like knives and such (Statistics). Domestic violence has always been a problem for as long as men and women have been together or married. But, in this day and age, these statistics could easily be lessened if boys and girls were taught more about emotions, equality, and respect. Rather than going after the guns themselves, why not go after the people using the guns, or even the reason WHY they use the

Gun violence is very prominent in the United States. It has been for quite some time. There are several problems with how people are accessing firearms, and the type of firearms they are buying. People are accessing firearms way to easy nowadays. Some of these firearms are stolen or illegal. We need to somehow crack down on firearms and how these men and women are accessing them so easily. According to BBC, “Some 13,286 people were killed in the US by firearms in 2015, and 26,819 people were injured. These figure exclude suicides.” They also stated “There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, which catalogues such incidents. A mass shooting is defined as a single shooting incident which kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant.” These numbers are outrageous and something needs to be done.

According to the Congressional Digest, in an article called Gun Violence Prevention, it states, “Firearms fatalities increased by 3.8 percent in 2005 to 30,694, by 0.7 percent in 2006 to 30,897, and by 1.1 percent in 2007 to 31,224” (Gun Violence Prevention 4). In today’s world, it is becoming a commonplace for us to flip on the news and hear about some tragic murder, mass shooting, etc. It has become extremely evident that we are sweeping these tragedies under the carpet, because, in fact, there is something we can do. What if the solution was a simple as a ban? What if we could decrease gun related violence drastically with one small change? Through my extended research of this topic, I have

Imagine you’re watching the news and hear of a mass shooting at a local college. You suddenly realize a family member or someone who’s very near and dear to you attends that institution and you rush to grab your phone to call and see if they’re okay. As you furiously dial their number over and over again you glance at the television screen and see their name in the list of people who were critically wounded or killed. Now imagine being the parent of a child in whom you drove to school that day, but later received a call informing you there was a shooting at the school and your child was amongst those killed. Sadly, you read and hear about these stories all the time, mass shootings, and gun violence. Guns and instances of gun violence aren’t new to American society, but there has definitely been a significant increase in these last few decades. Instances of gun violence that include mass shootings in theaters, schools and college campuses have been on the rise and it will only continue to rise unless proper actions are taken. Because of this, stricter gun control laws need to be placed into effect.

Gun violence is a prominent piece of American society, the growing statistics only support this statement. In just 2017 alone there has been over 47,856-gun related incidents and the number continues to increase daily. Beginning with the Sandy Hooks mass shooting, an elementary school massacre, there has been over 1,518 mass shootings over the past six years. Shannon Watts, a concerned parent after Sandy Hooks, established the gun reform chapter of Moms Demand Action. The organization wants to create awareness for creating gun reform legislations. They are supporters of the 2nd Amendment but are pushing to see solutions to help reduce the gun crisis in American society. In order to build responsiveness to this issue, they have created a photographic PSA with Americans as the audience in mind. The PSA is set inside of an elementary school library, with two little girls in the center of the frame holding one prop each. One of the girls is holding the book Little Red Riding Hood, and the other is holding an assault weapon. Moms Demand Action shocks the American audience by using the pathos within the visual appeal of the PSA to establish their mindset on gun violence reform.

It is impossible not to open a newspaper, watch the television, or listen to the radio with out hearing about some type of gun violence. Perhaps the main reason for such high gun violence is that guns are so plentiful in the Unites States. In fact, there are sixty five million handguns in America ("The `facts' about Guns"). These guns contribute to an annual medical cost of fourteen billion dollars, which is spent solely on treating gun victims ("Handguns in America"). Not surprisingly, handguns are the cause of eighty percent of homicides, seventy percent of suicides, and almost every accidental shooting ("Youth and Violence"). Handgun violence is a problem that is easy for everyone to see. How to solve this predicament is another

Former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer once said "Yes, people pull the trigger - but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror". Spitzer’s words makes one think: should we fear the person behind the gun or the gun itself? The majority of violent crimes that happen in America are not only caused by a criminal, but also the weapon in which the criminal is holding. America’s gun violence problem stems from the increasing accessibility of firearms. Many of the mass shootings in America could have been prevented if access to semi-automatic and automatic weapons were completely banned. Gun violence is an arising issue, and a change needs to be made concerning the gun laws in the U.S. Stricter gun control laws is necessary to prevent high accessibility to firearms and mass shootings, also research shows that Australia’s strict gun control laws are proven to be more efficient in preventing gun violence.