On average over 100,000 people are killed by guns in murders, assaults, police intervention and accidents (“Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “). Many people say that it isn’t the guns that kill people, it’s people, but this is incorrect because if people didn’t posses guns they wouldn’t be able to murder people in a simple quick way. The debate on the second amendment and gun control laws has been going on for the past couple decades in the United States. Recently deadly mass shooting have become frequent.
Besides a few new safety procedures for schools and workplaces, not much has been done to make urrent and future generations safer from guns. Guns have been obtained by people who have mental disabilities, are unstable, or dislike people that are different from themselves. These people caused numerous wrongful deaths over the years. More and more often the news shows how dangerous these weapons can be. There are hundreds of millions of different types of guns in America, and many of those are placed into dangerous hands.
There should be stricter gun laws because mass shootings in the US use legal weapons, stricter laws will save lives, and the second amendment is misinterpreted by many US citizens. There should be stricter laws on guns because most mass shootings in the US use legal weapons. The weapons used in crimes were obtained legally by a person and then resold or used by criminals. There should be a law requiring every person to have a detailed background check, each gun to have a tracker, and a notification to be sent every time a weapon is fired.
Just this past week The New York Times reported on trial of case where an, “ostensible purchaser (Jacob Collins) was fronting for an 18-year-old… “. Later that 18 year old, Julius Burton, used that same weapon to shot two police officers. He sed the once legally purchased weapon to shoot, “Officer Bryan Norberg in the face and Officer Graham Kunisch in the head and body” (Eckholm 1). Also, the worker who sold the pistol was suspicious that Collins was fronting for Burton, when Burton accompanied him to the gun shop and helped him select the gun.
The workers ignored their suspicions and sold the weapon. This is significant because if there were stricter laws this suspicion wouldn’t have been overlooked and the officer’s injuries might have prevented. It is important to note that if there were different laws, the worker had to abide by the gun ould have never reached the hands of Collins, who handed it off to Burton. The National Institution of Justice (NIJ) did research showing that, “one of every five guns that is used in a crime in Los Angeles moves very quickly from its initial, legal sale into criminal use.
This suggests that many legal gun purchases in the city might be what are called “straw purchases” – that is, a gun bought by an adult with a clean record expressly to give or sell it to someone who could not have otherwise gotten one” (NIJ 1). Stricter laws or more severe punishments for those making “straw purchases”, might lessen the number of “straw urchases”, reducing the amount of crime, because it would be harder to obtain a gun.
Later two separate parts of LA did a letter experiment program in areas with similar populations and a high concentration of people who purchased guns that were later used in illegal acts. The letter told residents that, “it was a crime to sell or give a gun to someone without completing a dealer record of sale form. They also warned recipients that they could be prosecuted if they did not do so and the gun was later used in a crime” (NIJ 2). Those who received the letter were much more likely to report their guns missing or stolen than hose who did not receive the letter.
The people conducting the experiment believe that this could be either people telling the truth about the thefts of their guns or people fronting for criminals covering for themselves. If the repercussions were more serious, they might think twice before illegally selling their weapons to criminals or people who do not have a clean record. Additionally, people who actually lost their weapons could track them and keep them in safe hands if the law enforcing gun trackers were in place.
Stricter laws and gun trackers would prevent gun and reduce shootings with originally legally urchased weapons. Therefore, there should be stricter gun laws because they would prevent criminals from utilizing legal weapons. Laws restricting gun use will save lives. On the average day, “289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention” (Brady Campaign 1) Imagine if all of these people couldn’t obtain guns on the first place.
That would be very significant because it would save the lives and horrible pains of 289 people and the pain their families and friends would go through. Having a loved one shot is devastating and can cause permanent damage. Most people feel that if they have a gun at home it will protect their family from an intruder, but “According to a 1998 study by the Journal of Trauma, a gun kept in a home is twenty-two times more likely to kill a family member or friend than an intruder” (Long 42).
This shows that if the average person were not allowed to possess a gun, it could save the lives of loved ones and prevent accidents. If laws were created preventing the ownership of guns, the number of people that are shot daily (289) would significantly decrease. Since Sandy Hook there has been a school shooting, on average, every week. How on earth can we live with ourselves if we do nothing? ” (Ye Hee Lee 1) Once a week a criminal goes to a school and shots at innocent children and we have not made any laws or greater restrictions to stop them.
Making laws that make it almost impossible for these criminals to obtain guns would decrease the number of school shootings, and the number of deaths brought upon the students and teachers. The logic is simple: with fewer guns, fewer people will die. Finally, the second amendment is misinterpreted to make eople believe that they are allowed to have guns. The second amendment reads, “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” (Cornell University Law School 1).
The second amendment clearly stated that the right to bear arms is so that each state can secure a militia. It does not talk about having guns in homes. Also, it is important to notice that the amendment is practically irrelevant because states do not have militias anymore; therefore people do not need to have a gun in their possession. People against the idea of gun control say that the second amendment says, “the right of the people and bear arms shall not be infringed,” but they are disregarding the part stating that this idea of possessing guns is solely for militias.
It is important to notice that people’s interpretation is biased to what they personally believe about gun ownership. “Many constitutional scholars have also interpreted the Second Amendment’s purpose to be providing arms to the population for the nation’s defense” (Long 38). This shows that people who study the constitution believe that the Right to Bear Arms is to protect the nation. People in the military could possess weapons for themselves to protect the country, not the general population where many things could go wrong with people owning guns.
The lack of knowledge makes people believe it is every person’s right to own a gun when that concept is not what is written in the Second Amendment. Therefore, there should be gun control laws because the second amendment does not say every citizen has the right to have a gun. The gun debate has been a controversial issue for the past decades, but recently the death toll caused by guns has increased. Every student should be able to go to school and e worried that a shooter may injure them.
This problem will only get worse in generations to come, so the time to act is now. Some people claim, “It is not guns that kill people, it is people that kill people. ” In reality if there were not guns those people would not have the opportunity to harm someone. The shooter makes a split second decision to pull the trigger and it is done. If they did not have a gun, that decision would not have even been presented. Though there is still a lot to learn and problems to solve, a start to making America a safer place is by making stricter gun control laws.
