Many have heard the saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” then on December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the small town of Newtown, Connecticut. Ever since this tragic day, there has been a large push for gun control in the US, led by President Obama. The bills that are before Congress would make penalties for buying guns illegally more onerous, address trafficking, and greatly expand the number of gun sales covered by background checks. These laws might make us all feel safer as well as make us feel like we have control over the “bad guys” but at the end of the day, these new laws will not stop what we all want to have stopped, and that is violence. The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in the United States is 270,000,000.
The rate of private gun ownership in the United States is 88.81 firearms per 100 people. In a comparison of the rate of private gun ownership in 178 countries, the United States is ranked at No. 1 (Alpers).
With these numbers, we can see that Americans in general, love their guns. The 2nd Amendment is what gives an American the right to own guns. The 2nd Amendment states, “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” (CRS Annotated Constitution).
The Term Paper on Friday Jan Gun Guns People
... patient, the government must allow people in the United States to posses and own guns. The two type of guns I will refer to are ... get their hands on a gun. Their number one goal is to make personal use or ownership of guns to be viewed as wrong. ... difference is clear.The fewer the guns the fewer the number of gun related assaults. Removing all guns from society will make it unheard of to ...
In this amendment, it says that people have the right to keep and bear arms. With the gun control that Obama is trying to enforce, it will be infringing on the 2nd Amendment.
If one of the amendments is not honored and enforced, it will cause a domino effect, in the future, making it easier for other amendments not to be followed, or to be changed just like the 2nd Amendment. The two opposing sides in this argument are the Conservatives vs. the Liberals. The Liberal will say “The Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to keep and bear arms, but only allows for the state to keep a militia. Individuals do not need guns for protection; it is the role of local and federal government to protect the people through law enforcement agencies and the military. Additional gun control laws are necessary to stop gun violence and limit the ability of criminals to obtain guns.
More guns mean more violence.” The Conservative will say “The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Individuals have the right to defend themselves. There are too many gun control laws – additional laws will not lower gun crime rates. What is needed is enforcement of current laws. Gun control laws do not prevent criminals from obtaining guns. More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens mean less crime” (Student News Daily).
The Liberals, as well as Obama, do have two decent laws that would be implemented due to gun control. First is to have a background check on all gun purchasers. The current law states that in order to buy a gun from any licensed gun dealer, the purchaser has to complete and pass a background check.
The loophole is that to buy a gun online or at a gun show, there is no background check that has to be performed. With this gun control law in place, the background check will be expanded to the gun shows, online, as well as to the licensed dealer, making it more difficult for the known lawbreakers and mentally unhealthy to purchase a gun. This law would help with keeping guns out of the hands of the people who shouldn’t have guns, but in the end, these people will still get the guns they want.
The Essay on Should Law Control Morality
Should Law Control Morality It seems as if every complicated moral issue sooner or later becomes a legal issue, at least in the United States. Law and morality intersect in many other matters of grave public concern, such as affirmative action, the death penalty and abortion. Moreover, they are not likely to sort themselves out any more easily with respect to the fruits of the human genome ...
For example, the drinking age is 21 in the US. How easy is it for underage kids to get their hands on alcohol? Very easy. Even though it is illegal, the underage people will still get the alcohol they want. It might not be as easy as if it was legal for underage people to consume alcohol, but they will still find a way to get the alcohol they want. It is the same thing with guns. The mentally ill and lawbreakers will find ways to work around the system to get the guns that they want; therefore this gun control law would not help with keeping guns out of the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.
The second law would put bans on high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic assault weapons. The Liberals’ reasoning for this law is that there is no reason for an American civilian to own, or have to own an assault weapon, for example an AK-47. The argument an individual will use in support of gun control would say something like, “The reason why the mass murders can have such a large killing spree is because they use these semi-automatic, high capacity ammunition weapons. If these kinds of weapons were made illegal it would be harder for these large killing sprees to happen.” That argument does sound logical, but let’s take a look at some numbers to see how much of an impact this law would cause.
In a speech that Mr. Virtual President, Bill Whittle, made he said, “In 2011 the total of fire arm murders came to 8,583 and total murders by all rifles, not just semi-automatic rifles, came to 323, which is only 3%.…but there were 5 times the amount of murders then all rifles combined made by knifes alone, and preventable medical errors kills about 98,000 people a year” (Bill Whittle).
With the small number of only 3% of murders made by all types of rifles compared to the total fire arms is a very small percentage. If this law came into place there would not be noticeable decrease of total fire arm murders due to semi-automatic rifles being banned. Ronald Reagan has a great quote; “if guns are outlawed; only outlaws will have guns.” If gun control was to take place and guns were banned, the law abiding citizens who own guns currently, would continue being law abiding, and turn their guns in.
The Essay on Gun Laws 2
... know, I never said a word about gun control laws. I just questioned why people are far more willing to carry weapons than work ... would be worse than this, since most of the people that murdered with guns would STILL be amoral sociopaths... they'd find a different ... who fire their guns are almost always found to have done so in self-defense. Compare that to arrests for most murders where ...
But on the other side the outlaws who do not obey the law, will resume not obeying the law and keep their guns. This would cause only the outlaws and police officers to own guns. Some in favor of gun control would fight back and say “Well we don’t need to have a gun because the police will have them and protect us.” That is true that police will protect us but a police officer is not going to always be by your side 100% of the time to protect you, but your gun can be there 100% of the time to protect you. The last statistic that Whittle uses is a great reason for why gun control is wrong. Whittle says, “Studies show that fire arms prevent anywhere from 800,000 to over 2,000,000 violent crimes every year. The lowestdest means that 100 times more violent crimes were prevented with fire arms then the total murders committed by fire arms” (Bill Whittle).
This is a large number of how many preventable crimes there were due to the fact that citizens can protect themselves with their firearms. The statistics show because Americans are able to own a fire arm, it prevents 800,000 to 2,000,000 crimes every year. This is a great reason of why taking guns away from the law abiding civilians would hurt. If gun control took place it would cause crimes to be made easier. The right for Americans to own guns far outweighs the consequences if gun control was put in place, taking away that right for civilians to own a gun.
In the speech of Mr. Whittle he said, “Some people want to blame for this horror (mass shootings) on 30 round magazines or semi-automatic rifles, we want to blame something, anything that we can control, but what we really want to ban is violence, murder, and insanity. But we don’t talk about that though because deep in our hearts each of us knows that violence and murder and insanity are built into the human condition” (Bill Whittle).
Taking away the right to own a gun is not going to stop crime, if anything at all; it will only increase because the criminals don’t have to fear a gun when committing a crime. Back to the famous quote of “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
