Running head: GUN CONTROL

Gun Control Jessica Smith Rowan Cabarrus Community College

Gun Control In the past few years there have been horrific shooting that have took place. Columbine High School is an example as well as the Newtown Connecticut that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Both of these shootings killed a number of people and students including the killer himself. These are horrible incidents but what are being blamed for these shootings? Some people might say guns are to blame for these incidents but how can a gun shoot itself? There is a funny saying going around the internet that talks about how a man, named Leo Fagan, put his gun on his front porch and watched it all day waiting for it to go off and kill someone. At the end of the day he noticed no one was shot or killed. Fagan then said [This gun] must be deficient. I should take it back to the store (2013). This goes to show that the gun is not what kills people because it cannot just go off on its own however; it was the killer himself who killed those people by misusing what the gun was intended for. Government is trying to pass the blame saying guns are the reason the world has so much violence and if we do away with the guns or increase the laws to own a gun then the killing will stop. The number one thing that is stopping the government from going through and taking away guns is that it would be unconstitutional for them to do so. The second Amendment states that people have the right to bear arms (Bowman 2011). Although there have been resent gun violence, there are plenty of people who are responsible when handling a gun. The government should not push for gun control laws because it decreases peoples safety, prevent people from hunting, and will not stop the violence; instead they should push for gun responsibility. A poll was done on 15,000 cops about what they thought about Obamas plan to band assault weapons. Nine in ten cops said that they thought that having more people carrying around guns with them and being armed at all times would make the gun violence go down. Arming

citizens with guns will cut down on the violence because it will make citizens able to stand up for themselves if something bad was to happen. For example, if a person was trying to mug someone they are less likely to go up to someone they know is armed because they know that they have less of a chance of getting away because the person could fight back. However, if the person was unarmed then the person mugging would be the overpowering one and could have more of a chance of winning the fight and getting away. Obama taking away assault weapons would decrease the chance of a citizen being able to defend themselves in a case like the one above. The National Rifle Association stated that teachers should be armed and the amazing part was that 81 percent of cops that took the poll above were for this movement. If taking away guns would put an end to the killing and violence then why do 81 percent of cops who help protect people from killers and keep our streets safe feel that providing teachers and the public with guns will make the world safer? It is not about taking way the guns but instead teaching people about gun responsibly and that is what government should be focusing on. Many Americans enjoy the sport called hunting. According to the website called statistic brain there is more than 12.5 million people who hunt every year. Guns are a big key factor when going hunting so when gun control laws start becoming stricter or they decide to take away guns all together many people are going to have to give up hunting if they cannot find another way to hunt the animals. Many people would be for this since they believe hunting is a cruel sport however, think about how fast deer populate. Eventually there will be an overload on deer and other animals and it will increase the number of car crashes and provide less land space. Car crashes would cause more people to be harmed or even end up dead. This is not something that would benefit our economy. Less land space is also bad because more animals like coyotes would start to populate areas and kill off all the rabbits for food and then start looking for other

kinds of pray like children. Hunting is important to the states because it also brings in income. In order to hunt people must have a hunting license which they have to pay to have. If there were no guns then less people would need this hunting license which would mean less money coming in for the state. So hunting provides food for the hunter, keeps fewer animals off the road and keeps from animals being over populated and taking over an area. Also it provides money for our economy but none of this can be possible if the government decides to make it illegal to own a gun or harder to get a gun due to gun control. People will try to argue that some kind of restriction is needed when it comes to guns and that is true to an extent. In 1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcenment Act which Prohibits juveniles from possessing or selling handguns and directs the attorney general to evaluate proposed and existing state juvenile gun laws was passed (Gettings). If criminals can already not access guns then why will stopping other people from accessing them stop the violence? Smoking cocaine is illegal however, there are a lot of people every day that gets by with smoking it and never gets caught. The same thing would go with the gun control laws the government is trying to pass. All the law would do is unarm the people that need to be protected. Just because they pass a law does not mean the violence is just going to go away if criminals will just find a way to get the guns like they have been or find a new method of killing. Guns are just a tool they use so what makes everyone so sure they will not move to something worse? There is no way to tell but taking away the protection of every day citizens is not the answer to the problem. Finally, Peoples safety and people who hunt are two very good reasons for why the government should not take away the peoples guns or to pass stricter gun control laws instead the government needs to start aiming for gun safety and gun responsibly. When a child at school

does something wrong does the school punish all the children? No, instead they put that one child on restriction whether that be sending the child to the principals office or suspending the child for the rest of the year. They then talk to the other children about how to behave and what is right and wrong so that they can learn from the incident. The same thing should go for guns. Just because you have one bad person who misuses the gun does not mean that they should ruin owning a gun for everyone instead the government should enforce more safety classes for gun owners about the right ways and wrong ways of guns. This will allow the people to be educated and still be allowed the right to defend themselves if someone was to try to cause them harm and it allows them to enjoy hunting and gather their own food. Also another thing that the government can do is find out how criminals are getting the guns. If more people would lock up their guns in a safe then the criminal cannot steal them and use them for their own needs. However, there is also people selling them own black markets as well if the government would spend more time busting people in the black markets instead of trying to come up with new laws and banned on guns then they could have already cut down the violence.

References Bedard, Paul. "Huge cop poll: 85% say gun control won't work, 86% want civilians armed." The Examiner. N.p., 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. <http://washingtonexaminer.com/huge-cop-poll-85-saygun-control-wont-work-86-want-civilians-armed/article/2526763>. Fagan, L. J. (2013, January 20). Guns don't kill. In The Spokesman-Review. Retrieved April 18, 2013, from http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/jan/20/guns-dont-kill/

Gettings, J., & McNiff, C. (n.d.). Milestones in Federal Gun Control Legislation . In Infoplease. Retrieved April 18, 2013, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/guntime1.html