We Need More Stringent Gun Control

When you’re out and about you trust people to not hurt you, but just when someone yells “Gun” every scatters, you’re telling yourself to run and get down at the same time. You hear several bullet flying past you, faster than you can think. Gun Control in today’s world is a term used very loosely around the laws that are in place to stop mass shootings and violence around the country. Many people in the nation believe that the society has many issues and don’t know how to stop them so they look up to the hierarchy of the United States and ask for help. Which is why the United States as a whole should have stricter control on guns.

Guns are the leading cause of violence in today’s world. Families have to worry about their children going to school or even walking home from school, because of how the United States has so many mass shootings. In the last 1,870 days there have been 1,624 mass shootings across the United States (“The Guardian”). The United States is undeniably one of the easiest countries to purchase guns in. Any person can easily obtain a gun and have the gun in possession the day of going in to buy it. In 24 out of 50 states an 18 year old can go in, fill out some forms, and leave with the gun they purchased that day. Which some people believe is completely wrong.

Most of the mass shootings that happen around the United States are because of the violence and majority of mass shootings are a result of where people have voted to ban guns. (‘Gun Control in America’). anger that people have, they then go into gun stores and buy semi-automatic weapons or assault rifles. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban enacted in 1994 expired in 2004. Attempts to renew this ban have failed, as have attempts to pass a new ban, such as the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 (“AWB”). Another Issue in today’s society of gun control is that the U.S. makes too many guns. The United States has around 211 million guns in circulation today, 70 million are handgun (“Kent State”). That means 141 million are either rifle or shotgun, or even assault rifle. The gun circulation number is too high especially when people argue that they hunt but each state only gives out X amount tags each year. Even though people don’t buy guns just to hunt, they buy guns for protection against violence in the community.

Young children and teens are desensitized to the society’s gun culture. In some neighborhoods, many of the children expect to die violently, probably by a gunshot (“Kent State”). In the United States there were 13,504 gun related injuries in 2017 alone (“Fortune”). The most dangerous city according to the FBI is Chicago on Mckinley Avenue. If humans grow up there or live near there they have a 1 in 13 person chance of being in a gun related crime every single year. Children who grow up in or other suburbs have the same risk of being in a firearm incident as people who live in chicago. Another issue is that we have too many guns the way it is. (“Gun Control – ProCon.org”). When children grow up they see guns everywhere such as on cartoons, and television ads with nerf guns, or video games. Major corporations like nerf send messages to kids that war is fun, kids have battles with their friends and everyone loved shooting there friends. Then video game companies made games about war that every kid loved. All of the businesses that advertise this do it for money but those companies can not deal with the aftermath of what it causes in today’s world.

Even though the society lives in the world’s richest, strongest, freest nation, their children do not have the freedom to believe that one day they will be adults and have to make decisions about the country’s future and what the United States does with the gun laws. Although people argue that guns have nothing to do with all the mass shootings there’s still an explanation that people who execute these mass shootings usually have a mental illness. If they can remember back to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland Florida, Nikolas Cruz had several issues that needed to be addressed. National news stated that he had a troubled past which brought on his mental illness, but it’s easy to detect this detect their past behaviors and do better background checks before buying guns. (‘Wolf’). When buying guns and going through all the papers it’s rather easy to walk out of the door with the firearm they purchased that day. The businesses that sell these firearms should first take a thorough background check on the customer, then the customer should write down references so the business owner can talk to them to see what they are like, second if they’ve ever been diagnosed with a mental illness they shouldn’t be allowed to purchase a firearm.

The National Rifle Association is one of the richest, most powerful lobbies in the country. Even though they have all this power they still don’t advise against gun violence this is because the NRA asserts that ‘guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Which is true, people that commit these crimes usually have a mental issue going on but if they don’t is usually out of anger or revenge. Which thus creates people developing a fear or stereotype every time they are in public this year to this date there has been 16,358,844 concealed carry permits issued according to a website called (“gunstocarry.com”). This tells the everyday citizen that people are getting guns to protect themselves from the violence in today’s world. (‘Agresti’). The NRA claims that gun laws will take guns from law-abiding citizens and leave guns in the hands of criminals. This is a scare tactic because no legislation has been proposed to take guns from serious hunters.

Anyone who has a handgun in the home is a potential criminal because, if a child gets the gun and hurts or even kills someone, the parent(s) should be held responsible. When catastrophic events like mass shootings happen the whole country goes into a national state of panic about what to do and why they didn’t see this coming, a simple answer for that is that they never even started looking. The average person understands when something bad is about to happen or they have an “instinct” or gut feeling. People can usually detect the wrong in people before events like mass shootings happen so the country as a whole figure out how to stop that before it’s too late. (‘Jones’). The second 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.” this says that if they have a well regulated militia then they can keep the firearms that they own.

People may argue that america shouldn’t try to pass strict gun control laws because people need protection against the violence that happens and many people are avid hunters as well, but hunters don’t need assault weapons to kill an animal. Most people that buy assault rifles or any assault weapon for that matter have one motif in mind and that is to start violence and end lives. Which is why the United States needs to take control of its population and put some laws into place that will help the nations mass shooting issue.

Stricter control on guns would make the nation better, and violence across their nation diminishes depending on the laws that are put into place. Guns are the leading cause of violence in today’s world, young children and teens who grow up in negligent neighborhoods are desensitized to the nations gun culture, the national rifle association which is one of the most powerful lobbies in the country suggests that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. By allowing people to easily get ahold of guns it creates an environment all across the nation that inflicts fear upon many families that today might be the last day they see a loved one.

Works Cited

1. Agresti, James D., Smith, Reid K. & Guerra, Rebecca. “Gun Control Facts.” Just Facts. 23 February 2018. Web. 27 August 2018. .
2. “Gun Control in America: Student Discussion Guide.” Creating a Safe Classroom Environment | Education World, www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/gun-control-america-discussion-guide.shtml.
3. “Gun Control – ProCon.org.” Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted in the United States?, 2013, gun-control.procon.org/.
4. Jones, Sarah. ‘The Mental Health Scapegoat.’ Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2018. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/HMWHWZ717125429/OVIC?u=ndk12a_58504zbiz&sid=OVIC&xid=163affdc. Accessed 5 Sept. 2018. Originally published as ‘The Mental Health Scapegoat,’ New Republic, 16 Feb. 2018.
5. “U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 14 Nov. 2017, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons.
6. Wolf, Carolyn Reinach, and Jamie A Rosen. “Missing the Mark: Gun Control Is Not The Cure For What Ails The U.S. Mental Health System.” HeinOnline, heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jclc104&div=32&id=&page=.

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