Gun control, as we know it, consists of the governmentrestricting the ability of individual citizens to purchase weapons. The different types of gun control vary from waiting periods betweenwhen you purchase the gun and when you actually get it, backgroundchecks so that high-risk people can’t purchase guns through legalchannels, and completely banning certain types of guns. There arecountless ways for criminals to avoid these government regulations,causing them to only render the ability of innocent citizensprotecting their home and family’s ability to purchase guns.
The “waiting period” method of gun control is basically atwo-step process. The first step in the procedure is that the personwanting a gun goes to his local shop (or calls a reputable mail orderoutlet) to place the initial order. Then, he must wait one to twoweeks while the government performs a small background check for pastcriminal activities, disorderly conduct, or lack of mental/emotionalstability. During this time, if the purchaser of the gun wanted thegun for impulse reasons (out of rage), it is hoped that they will notstill want to cause bodily harm after a couple weeks.
The problem with this method of gun control is that it stopsthe ordinary citizen from purchasing a gun on the whim, but itactually protects the common criminal. Underage buyers and otherdelinquents can purchase mass quantities of weapons through “dummybuyers” that have clean backgrounds. So if a burglar enters a housewith full intention to maim or kill, the innocent victim (who can’tget a gun to protect his family because he was arrested for drunkdriving seven years ago) is simply a victim of a law that supportsblack market trade. There are over 200 million registered guns incirculation (Larson), and they are the ones that will not be killingour children. The unregistered ones are owned by murderers, rapists,Another practiced technique of preventing dangerous firearmsfrom killing honest people is to ban an entire type of weapon. TheAK-47 is a commonly-used example of that.
Again, the criminals stillhave limited access to the weapon through underground channels, butthese banned weapons are so powerful that there is really is notpractical purpose for them in the home (or in hunting). This can easily be adverted by the common criminal who knowsanything about the way guns are assembled. A semi-automatic machinegun can be converted into a fully-automatic gun with a littlehandcraft. A shotgun can become a bloody powerful weapon bysawing-off the tip of it. Obviously, new methods of gun control areneeded to produce desired results.
In the first half of 1991, fiftychildren under the age of seventeen had been shot to death. If wecontinue to monitor the sale of firearms, there must be new techniquesthat can watch where the guns end up. And if we decide that wecan/will not go down that track, we must make that judgementearnestly, and without haste, because it will decide the future of TheUnited State of America as we know it. Bibliography:Larson, Erik. “The Story of a Gun”, The Atlantic Monthly.
January 1993Pooley, Eric. “Kids with Guns. ” , New York. August 5, 1991.
