We Must Ban Assault Weapons Essay

There are many views about gun control especially about assault weapons. People are both for it and against it. The people who are for the ban believes the weapons can only be used for violence. They don’t want to recognize that people against the ban have several different reasons to own their guns. These reasons can vary; some people just want protection; others want to use their guns for sport. This pleasurable pastime will also provide a variety of food to supplement family grocery supplies and to help people save on food costs. Instead of making more gun control laws the ones we have should be enforced.

The issue of banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines has been debated for years, but has never been discussed with such urgency as it is now. The issue is the banning of assault weapons in our society. Are we the kind of country that allows and encourages its citizens to own weapons of mass destruction? The moral issue we face is banning ownership of these weapons to ordinary citizens while protecting their rights under the second amendment of our Constitution. Considering the bloodshed and death that assault weapons cause in the hands of citizens and criminals, it seems to me that assault weapons do not have a place in our homes and society.

With the popular culture providing positive images of guns, the United States has a gun prevalence that is very rare in the modern world. While many people appreciate the “gun culture”, guns are heavily involved in violence in the United States. According to U.S. Department of Justice, since 1960, more than 750,000 Americans have died under firearms, including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries. The figure 1 provides a comprehensive survey of U.S. violent crimes for the period from 1993 to 2011.This figure illustrates that from 1993 to 2011, about 60% to 70% of homicides were associated with a firearm. Over the same period, between 6% and 9% of all nonfatal violence, with about 20% to 30% of robberies and 22% to 32% of aggravated assaults involving a firearm.

Juvenile gun violence is an ever-increasing problem in our country. With a wave of school shooting behind us it is time to get this under control. Many studies have been done on how to effectively diminish juvenile gun violence. It is clear that this must be handled on a state and local level with the federal government backing the states. Prevention and law enforcement is the key to successfully eradicate our nation of the ugly stain caused by youth gun violence.

In the legal and illegal use of firearms, some ways of obtaining and the selling of guns are shocking and others are well known. Children, teens, and adults all have ways to obtain a firearm even if they are underage or do not pass a mandatory back-ground check, which causes

Lastly, more responsibility should be put on the adults who legally own a firearm, in order to keep weapons out of the hands of a teen. By making them inaccessible and unloaded, teens will have a much harder time getting their hands on weapons that have potential to harm them, stopping future gun crimes against teens in its tracks. Guns are not the only reason teenagers are being affected in negative ways, many other factors that are influencing teenagers in America. American’s need to open their eyes and realize that guns should not be used as a scapegoat, the actions of a person does the real harm.

Over the years the topic of gun control has turned out to be very polemic causing large debates, especially in the United States. A vast majority of people who are against gun control insist that is their right to own a gun mainly for self defense, while others who are for it, point out that it is not necessary to have access to certain guns like the military-style weapons therefore a ban should take place.

Gun control has recently brought a massive uproar to the United States after several tragedies combined mass murder with firearms. Some argue that guns are meant to be used for our protection and it takes someone to pull the trigger while others believe that guns are intended to cause serious harm or death to the intended target. The right to own a firearm stems from the second amendment of the constitution and states that a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms, shall not be infringed. The first piece of gun control legislature that was passed in the United States was in 1911 when Sullivan’s Law passed to make buying or carrying a handgun without a permit a felony

Teenage gun violence is on the rise. Gun violence has become a major problem for America. We have more privately owned guns than any other country. This could be one of the reasons that guns are being used by teens, because of the access they have to guns. The availability of guns to our youth is making the world unsafe. Although lawmakers are working on gun control laws, I wonder is the problem too far gone.

Although no one can explain the "why" of these tragedies, recent statistics give insight into the "how": A 1990 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) survey found that one in twenty high school students had carried a gun in the past month, while a 1994 Harris poll found that only one in five students would tell a teacher if he or she knew that another student was bringing weapons to school. Where do these kids get their guns? The Harris poll found that only 43% of parents of minors keep their guns safely locked, which means that an estimated 1.2 million latchkey elementary school students can access the guns kept in their houses. The consequences of the latter statistic were brutally obvious in Jonesboro, when sixth grader Andrew Golden and eighth grader Mitchell Johnson opened fire on a crowd of students with guns taken from a glass

“States that passed "shall-issue" laws between 1977 and 2010 had a 2% or more increase in the murder rate, and at least 9% increases in rates of rape, aggravated assault, robbery, auto theft, burglary, and larceny, according to an Aug. 2012 paper” (National Bureau of economic research). With this being said the more availability for teenagers and young adults to get weapons the more likely crime rates would increase. Not saying that every single teen or every single young adult who gets or has a gun will turn into a criminal or participate in violent actions but, they are still adolescent and will make mistakes. Especially if they are trying to fit in with a specific group of people, they will pretty much do almost anything. They may steal, kill, injure, abuse, etcetera just to be intertwined with those people. They could even steal the weapon from the administrator to use for bad or give to someone else to use for bad. People are getting to be really persuasive especially teenagers they get pulled in different directions every day. Even though we don't like admitting it most of them are getting pulled in the wrong directions. Well bringing weapons into schools just helps give them more of a reason to turn for the worst and do things that no person should do. These kids should be getting help and comfort and also understanding, not to be put down and lead to do things such as stealing and abusing one another and

Gun control in the United States was first introduced in 1934 when legislation was drafted and passed in 1934 to impose new criminal penalties, along with regulations and taxes, on the machine guns and sawed-off shotguns preferred by the era's most notorious gangsters, largely in response to the bloody gun violence carried out by the likes of Al Capone and Bugs Moran. Congress added to the National Firearms Act with another round of new laws four years later. The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 put restrictions on the interstate guns and ammunition trade. It required, in many cases for the first time, for dealers to register themselves and keep records of their transactions (Kreig 6). Those laws were the first to cause debate and arguments about limiting guns and gun use for Americans. Gun control is the regulation of the selling, owning, and use of guns. This issue is so important because it could affect the use of firearms in this country and have an impact on the safety of our citizens and others around the world. It’s been a prevalent debate in American politics with many differing opinions. The debate even stretched past

When Eli Whitney first mass manufactured guns in the 1790’s, his first contract called for production of 10,000 weapons (Eli Whitney Museum n.d.), in 2013 more than 10.8 million guns were produced in America alone, an 1080% increase from Eli Whitney’s original contract for 10,000 weapons (ATF 2015). With huge increases in manufacturing comes and equally large jump in gun ownership, one would think; “31.0% of households reported having a firearm in 2014, essentially tying with 2010 for the lowest level of gun ownership in the last 40-some years. This is a decline of about 17 percentage points from the peak ownership years in 1977-1980.” (University of Chicago 2015). Over the years the rate of ownership has drastically decreased, but the rate of crime associated with illegal guns has gone up, in a study by Phil Cook, Susan Parker, and Harold Pollack (2015) found that, “70 inmates who had possessed a firearm, only 2, or 2.9 percent or 98.1%, had bought it at a gun store. The report found that percentage was in line

Nonetheless, Americans are defenseless to gun violence every day.” (Bilchik) The state of Alabama is ranked number 3 among the states with the highest gun deaths in the United States. In 1996 Birmingham, AL started the Youth Firearms Violence Initiative (YFVI). YFVI’s goal was to reduce gun violence among local youth. “With the average household gun ownership being 57.2 percent and death rate of 17.79 per 100,000.” (Rand) The main focus of YFVI was to reduce gun violence within the Birmingham Public School System through education and intervention. “School officials and officers worked collaboratively to detect firearms in schools by conducting searches of lockers and vehicles and by using handheld metal detectors during random checks of students. The officers also worked to prevent trespassing on school grounds. As a result of the programs implemented in the Birmingham Public School System, juvenile’s offenses declined 28 percent, falling from 1,045 to 752.” (Bilchik)

Increases in gun control were slight from then until the 1960’s, a decade bejeweled with peace movements. Landmark events such as the emerge of vast controversy of America’s war with Vietnam and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy encouraged broad legislation in favor of gun control. During this time period, Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson’s seized advantage of the nation’s opinions, and won passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 (History of Gun-control Legislation 1). The latter became primary law for regulating firearms, restricting felons, drug users, and the mentally ill from buying guns, expanding gun dealers’ licensing and record keeping requirements, and raised the legal age for purchasing handguns to 21.