What is gun control? Gun control is laws or policies that deal with manufacture, sale, transfer possession, and modification. Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in American politics. The United States has roughly about 120.5 guns per 100 persons, which is the highest total and in the world. Proponents of gun control laws say that the second amendment was intended for militias. That gun violence would be reduced and gun restrictions have always existed. We the people need to be heard and stop the violence.
Some Pro and Cons about gun control on the website ProCon.org, states that 22% of Americans own at least one or more guns. Statistics shows that 35% are men and 12% are women gun owners. The second amendment isn’t an unlimited right to own guns. Even Though some people might say that the second amendment protects our individual rights to own guns and that they are needed for self-defense against threats 9 times out of 10 that’s not what the guns are used for in the end. These laws are old or older than the second amendment, for example Colonial America transfers runs to catholics, slaves, servants, and Native Americans. On the website guns are rarely used for self-defense (79% victims). Majority of Americans that are gun owners support the new gun restrictions. There has been 29,618.300 violent crimes committed between the years of 2007 and 2011, only 235,700 protected themselves with a firearm. In an National Review articles, small citigroup’s are taking the initiative to set restrictions on selling firearms by its business customers. The new policy prohibits the sale of firearms to customers who haven’t passed background checks, or those who are younger than the age of 21. Other huge businesses are taken part as well such as Bank of America, Facebook, and Youtube.
Massive incidents that associate with gun violence are school shootings and mass shootings. As mentioned in a Time magazine, “School Shootings are Becoming the New Normal”. School shootings are a waking nightmare, that are recurring horrors that we can’t seem to stop. “That we sort of seem hopeless” says (TIME Magazine). Our latest nightmare that occured at Sante Fe High School in texas on May 18, with about 12,000 people clustered around. Ten people were killed, 8 of those victims were students and 2 were teachers. The killer being a 17 year old student they went to school with. He got ahold of his fathers guns, one of the victims mother said her daughter, rebuffed his advances. The big question is“Who knows why someone murders his peers?” In the month of February, in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 17 died: 14 were students and 3 staff members. “After Parkland, President Trump offered a grab bag of solutions: to strengthen background checks, ban bump stocks, arm teachers.” (Edwards,TIME) Congress passed no new laws. Communities reacted differently to these tragedies. Suburban Parkland, students made a national conversation around gun violence, helping to push legislation in Florida and more. Oregon expanded a law banning those convicted of stalking or domestic violence from owning guns. Florida, Maryland and Vermont joined Rhode Island, Connecticut, California, Oregon, Washington and Indiana in establishing “red flag” policies, that give law enforcement the power to confiscate guns from people who make threats of violence online or in person. Santa Fe,in the large rural community’s, their reaction was more muted. Students and their parents, as a whole, stopped short of demanding stricter gun-control laws. For a long time, people who oppose gun referns say that nothing could be done to stem the violence. Those claims are wrong. Gun violence is indeed notoriously underfunded, but data shows that lawmakers can act upon saving lives from the gun violence. For instance the “Las Vegas massacre, the massacre at Pure Nightclub in Orlando, movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo, Virginia Tech slaughter, and the massacre at Texas First Baptist Church. Those are the top 5 highest casualty mass shooting in modern American history.” (Edwards,TIME) All of them dealing with semi-automatic weapons that allowed the shooter to kill innocent people without reloading. “National polls show that roughly ⅔ of Americans believe there should be tighter gun restrictions. At Quinnipiac University, they held a poll from February broke down that support by proposal: 97% of Americans support universal background checks; 83% support mandatory waiting periods for firearm purchases; 67% support an assault-weapon ban.”(Edwards,TIME) The politics are tricky, and in the world of lobbying, there is plenty of money in intransigence. “Two weeks before the shooting at Santa Fe High School, Trump addressed the annual convention of the NRA “Your Second Amendment rights are under siege,” he told the crowd, “but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your President. Will we ever awake from these ongoing horror?” (Edwards,TIME) The story of the Santa Fe shooting seemed to end the same way it always does, with the “inevitable candlelit vigil and the images of tear-streaked teenagers burying their faces in their friends’ necks. There was no dramatic climax, no indication that this time things will change”.(Edwards,TIME) Sad tragies to go through and think about.
A time when the horror over gun violence stood a chance to have national politicians to act on their outrage. In America nothing is ever simple when guns are involved. “We weren’t gun grabbers”. Only advocates interested in “making sure that the bad guys don’t get to them”. Polls show that people favor universal background checks and stricter rules that keep weapons out of the mentally unstable and criminally menacing hands. American medical association adopted a series of sweeping policies aimed at preventing gun violence. Treating gun injuries was becoming an all too common experience for doctors. “The country’s largest physician group had voted to support dozens of policies. Some of them being a call to ban all assault type of weapons, oppose the arming of teachers, keeping schools a gun free zone, all gun owners to be required to complete a gun safety course and all firearms to be registered and etc” (Kounang, CNN). Nearly 176,000 gun related deaths between the years of 2012 to 2016, 62% of those were suicides. “The gun homicide rates in the United States are 25.2 times higher than the other high income countries like Italy, Australia, Finland, and Portugal. Approximately 25% of the nations doctors have taken a stance on gun violence.”(Gebelhoff, The Washington Post) At least 16 policy recommendations have included background checks and waiting periods to make gun purchases. A time when horror over gun violence stood a chance of persuade national politicians to act on their outrage.
“Radical consideration came into play at times, imposing new gun restrictions in the 1960 after two dozen rifle carrying members of the black panthers entered state capitol building.”(Haberman, New York Times). In 1994 a ban on many assault weapons, included AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a weapon of choice for many rampage killers. Cracks are beginning to show in the N.R.A armor, evidenced by widespread support for the Parkland students and the millions of others who marched to demand lawmakers to stem the violence. Great danger to gun rights as to freedom of speech in the nation, indeed the two are linked.
Concluding, we the people need to be heard and stop the gun violence. As of November 8, 2018, the thousand oaks bar shooting marks the 307th mass shooting out of the 311 days in 2018. Meaning there has only been 4 days without any shootings. Such a huge number and very sad thing to think about when you gave to raise your kids, teenagers, and even babies in such a scary time when school shootings are seen as normal now. We need to put a stop to this violent madness before it gets even more out of control then it already has. We need to protect our love ones, and fight for those who and can’t and do it for those who have lost their precious loved ones, because God forbid we have to go through another tragedy as a whole country.
