Gun Control
April 20th, 1999; March 21st, 2005; November 5th, 2009; July 20th, 2012; December 14th, 2012; November 29th, 2015; June 12th, 2016; October 1st, 2017; February 14th, 2018; May 18th, 2018; August 3rd, 2019; August 4th, 2019; and August 31st, 2019. What do all of these dates have in common? They are all the days that a mass shooting has occurred. These aren’t even all of the mass shootings that have happened in the last 20 years, just some of the most known. According to Gun Violence Archive, in 2019, there have been 310 mass shootings in the US.With this number taken into account, it would mean that about 1.2 shootings have occurred each day of this year alone.
With this large number in mind, the issue of gun control has become very controversial over the last few years. In my own personal opinion, I believe the government should make better gun control laws. If this was so end up happening, there would be many advantages to making stricter gun laws, but with these advantages comes disadvantages as well.
If better gun laws were to be enacted, it could reduce the number of gun deaths. In the years following 1999, there have been 527,538 total gun deaths. Guns were one of the leading causes of death by homicide and suicide. A way to reduce firearm deaths is simple, to conduct stricter background checks before selling ammunition to someone and better gun identification requirements. A lot of people like to justify having a gun saying, “It is for self defense” when really, guns are rarely used in this way. Of 84,495,500 property crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.12% of victims used a firearm to protect themselves. Other ideas that show how stricter gun laws show be enacted include: legally owned guns are often stolen/used by criminals, a majority of adults (including gun owners) support background checks and bans on assault weapons, more gun control leads to fewer suicides, mandatory safety features could reduce the number of accidental gun deaths, and that having access to a gun increases the risk of violence. One last argument I see come up in the news, and online, is that other countries with very strict gun control laws have lower gun homicide and suicide rates than the United States. This is something that has stood out to me because you very rarely hear about a mass shooting that isn’t inside the borders of the United States. And I honestly think it is because gun laws are a lot more strict in places other than the US.
Even though I think more solid gun laws would result in less gun violence, there are still so many negative issues that can present themselves if new laws were to be made. A gun control legislation would most likely create a black market, which is a strong reason why you can’t ban guns altogether. There will always be people who steal or illegally buy firearms. New laws could deny people a sense of safety, as well. Background checks and other forms of this when buying a firearm are an invasion of privacy; these checks would require government databases to have personal information on all gun owners (everything from name to mental health history to their address to criminal records). Although it would reduce them, gun control laws would not fully prevent suicides. Some of the strictest gun laws in the world are in Mexico, yet it does not work, therefore how could it work in the United States? This goes back to the idea of other countries having gun control laws. This may be because they are readily available whether it be through the black market or buying elsewhere. I think that places where guns are more available, there will be a higher amount of gun violence.
Part of me wants to blame the government for these recent mass shootings because they haven’t done anything to reduce gun violence. But doing more research on this topic I learned a lot more about other perspectives and why certain laws wouldn’t work. When it comes to the government and passing laws, you can never please everyone. With gun laws, especially, more people are involved and educated because they want to be safe, whether that be with or without guns present. I read a lot about how attempts of trying to improve gun control laws have been ineffective, which is, again, because people will always disagree and have their own opinions on the matter.I think that the government needs to try to make a compromise that somehow will benefit both sides of this long talked about debate.
I hope that someday, hopefully in the near future, that gun violence will decrease. Whenever I hear about a new incident on the news, I just think “Why won’t this stop? Why is this happening?” How many more times must an act of violence, using a firearm, happen before we do something about it.
Source Links
www.gunviolencearchive.org
https://gun-control.procon.org/
vittana.org/10-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-gun-control.
I think your piece is very strong and is written very well. I agree with the idea of the advantages being disadvantages. I think the biggest one that stood out to me was the fact that people will start selling on the black market. There is so much nagative in pur world and I believe that we need to focus more on the good rather than evil. As a society we need to work on coming together and making each other safe instead of scared. School should be a place where kids want to learn and have fun but these days you never know if you could get bombed or shot up in the school. Its scary to think about, but thats the harsh reality of our world. If guns had structer laws mayble people wouldnt be as scared to leave their home. But with good comes bad and you never know what could happen.
I agree with your opinion that the United States needs to make better gun control laws. There has been way too many mass shootings throughout the years. Each year the amount of deaths by guns have been increasing. I like your intro it is a very good start to this blog. It got my attention and I wanted to read more. It is very important to conduct better background checks before people buy guns or weapons. By doing this, hopefully the amount of people dying from this will go down. I don’t disagree with anything in your blog because you are using statistics and facts that are very powerful. I agree that there could be a lot of other problems that can occur if we add stricter laws in the United States. I know that it isn’t the gun that kills it is the person that is shooting the gun. Sadly, there will always be gun violence. I wouldn’t add anything to you argument because you talk about your opinion and you add the other opinion from the argument.