Nielsen1 Joseph Nielsen John Dursema English 1010 22 July 2013 Gun Control in America 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. Who, in 1789, would have thought that this amendment would be such a topic of controversy 224 years later. When our founding fathers wrote up the Bill of Rights it is almost certain that they had no intention of the Second Amendment being fought over for so many generations. Their goal was to create a country that their children and all other future generations would not have to worry about the simple rights, that they were establishing, being taken away. A country where the people mattered, and no one person, or small group of people, would have the ability to take away those rights for their own benefit. Some may ask, is this amendment outdated? Is it unrealistic in today's society? Or is it dangerous? The purpose of this essay is to find the answer to those questions. Let's start off with exploring the viewpoints of those who are asking those questions and explore modern day concerns as to why this amendment may not apply in today's society. According to the article A Guide to Mass Shootings in America by , Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan, since 1982 there have been at least 62 mass shootings. Of those shootings, more than three quarters of the 143 firearms involved were obtained legally and more than half of the actual shootings involved schools or workplaces. 44 of those shooters were white males and, perhaps the most startling statistic was, one of the shooters was an eleven year-old boy (only one shooter was a woman). Ezra Klien wrote an article for the Washington Post called Twelve Facts About Guns and Mass Shootings in the United States: in this article he uses facts and statistics to analyze whether or not he thinks we should have

Nielsen2 stricter gun control laws in America. One of the studies he talked about was a study done by The Harvard Injury Control Research Center as to whether or not more guns resulted in more homicide. The findings were conclusive; in all 50 states, and across many different countries over a 10 year period, the results were that more guns do in fact result in more homicide. Perhaps one of the points that Klien was trying to make, and many others like him, is that we need to enforce stricter gun control laws. Who should have guns? What process should they have to go through to obtain them? Should they have to register them? Should gun owners have to go through psychological testing or should their mental history be required in order to purchase a firearm? One of the twelve facts that Klien brings to light is that in states in America that had stricter gun control laws had fewer gun related deaths. He also talks about the popularity nation-wide of citizens being in favor of stricter gun control laws. He provides a list of requirements that have been brought up related to gun control and the number of people that voted on a CNN poll whether they were in favor of that restriction or not. The findings showed that most people were in favor of performing background checks before purchasing a gun and making guns unavailable to felons or the mentally ill. Not far behind, was the requirement to register weapons, banning high capacity clips, and semi-automatic weapons. What was, perhaps, the most shocking result is that almost nobody was in favor of banning guns completely, a surprising finding considering the fact that Klien also stated that gun ownership in the United States is declining overall. Are citizens becoming more afraid of firearms because of the recent shootings in America? Are there more people who should not be allowed to own firearms, therefor, do not buy them? Or is the idea of needing a gun to protect yourself something that is outdated in today's society where banning certain gun components is the best solution? Klien answers one of those questions in his article with a study that shows that shootings don't tend to substantially affect views on gun control. So what, then, do we do about the increase in shootings and what laws can we put into place to protect our citizens? Why do the amount of shootings increase while the amount of gun ownership decreases?

Nielsen3 Many people on the right-wing side of the argument will tell you that firearms are needed for self defense in situations like these shootings. Two of these people are David Rivkin and Andrew Grossman, authors of the article Gun Control and the Constitution. In this article Rivkin and Grossman talk about the real issue of gun control being that more people are just becoming uncomfortable with guns so they may not have the guns they need or the right type of guns in a situation where they need to defend themselves. They discuss how, in the Constitution of the United States, it says that our right to bear arms shall not be infringed. They go on to talk about different cases in history that have tried to take that away and have not been successful in doing so. The reason that they provide for why Americans still have the same rights as they used to is because those who have tried to fight against that right, do so because they are uncomfortable with guns due to inexperience. Something that most pro-gun arguments will include is that we have the right to bear arms and have since the day the Constitution included that in our rights. Most never get into the details of why we were given that right in the first place, why it was so important that it was included, or why that may or may not still be relevant. When the Constitution was written, and Americans were given the right to bear arms, our founding fathers had just escaped a tyrannical government. They had just started a country that, they had every hope and dream, wouldn't turn into the country they had just come from. The right to bear arms was given to the citizens so that they could protect themselves from the U.S. Government should it ever become tyrannical. The right was given so that citizens had the opportunity to get together, form militias, and defend themselves and their beliefs. Now when thinking about whether or not that argument is applicable in today's society, many pro-gun citizens will tell you yes. Many have an arsenal of examples of governments that took away their citizens right to own weapons or even just required them to register them. For them, the story always ends the same way, every time a government did that to their citizens wars began, countries were taken over, innocent people were killed, and nobody could protect themselves. A popular example of this argument is with Adolf Hitler during World War II.

Nielsen4 Both sides of the gun control argument have their good points and their downfalls. So what is one to make of this? For an argument that seems so black and white to some, there are so many gray areas when you dissect the issue. I don't think that there would be many gun advocates voting to let a convicted killer purchase a gun and at the same time, I don't think that you would easily find an antigun protestor that would refuse to be protected from that same killer, should somebody with a firearm step in (like a police officer). What can be even more confusing is the laws in between the extremist points of view. What capacity of magazine should your everyday Joe be able to own. If somebody breaks into your house you surely wouldn't need more than 10 bullets just to stop one man. But what if two or three men broke into your home? What if enough people to be a small army decided to revolt and go on a killing spree to make a political point? What good is 10 bullets going to do for you in that situation? There may never be a right answer to these questions. Good and evil has been a struggle since the beginning of time. There are murderers, there are wars, and there are so many innocent people that have been lost or hurt because of all of this. The question is, can anybody change what bad people are going to do by making it difficult? Is a serial killer going to stop killing because he can't have more than 10 bullets in his magazine? Or would he just change his weapon of choice? How would these laws protect innocent people when the people these laws are designed for are breaking the law by hurting them in the first place? How many lives have guns saved in the past and is that something that should be considered? In my opinion, all sides considered, I think that there were some very valid reasons that the right to bear arms is in place. I think that looking through history, it is easy to see that wars, corrupt governments, and evil people are not in any danger of ceasing to exist. It is also easy to see that the most law abiding citizens have the potential to snap and do something awful. It seems as if the only way to protect everybody from each other is to quit blaming the weapons. The U.S. Needs to spend more time analyzing what is going on behind the trigger of these guns, and find a way to fix the real problem which is the trigger man themselves. We may not be able to predict that somebody is going to

Nielsen5 go on a shooting spree, but what can be studied and analyzed is what happened in that person's mind to cause them to do that. Was it a history of mental illness? Was it that they were being worked too hard for too long and couldn't take it anymore? Were they getting bullied in school? I think that if we begin to explore the story behind the crime we may see a trend. Wasting time arguing about what guns should be legal and how people should be allowed to get them is just resulting in more crimes against innocent victims. I feel as though that is about as important as arguing what kind of pencils should be allowed in schools. The people committing these crimes don't do so because there are guns available, they do it because they have been hurt, they are overworked, they are confused or mentally ill, and some are just evil. Those same people would use a pencil to commit these crimes if nothing else was available and we need to figure out how to fix that issue. I believe that people should be able to own guns and that gun education should be readily available for those who need to be taught how to use them safely and correctly. Should paranoid schizophrenics be able to purchase a gun? Probably not. Nor should killers, rapists, or sex offenders. But when we look at the issue at hand it is the people that are being produced out in the world and how we can make it so that everyday citizens are as safe as possible. If our government really is of the people, by the people, for the people then why, when things go wrong, is it not the people that are responsible?

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Klein Ezra. 12 facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States. Washingtonpost.com. Washington Post, 14 December 2012. Web. 21 July 2013. This article will be used as a source of statistics regarding gun control laws and gun related crimes in the U.S. The article is from an objective viewpoint, simply giving information and facts about the current and past crimes related to guns. Rivkin David B. Jr. and Grossman Andrew M. Gun Control and the Constitution. Wsj.com. Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2013. Web. 21 July 2013. This article will be used at the right-wing opinion on gun control. The opinion here is that the Constitution was very clear on gun control laws and should still apply in todays day and age. Follman, Mark, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan A Guide to Mass Shootings in America Motherjones.com. Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 July 2013. This article was used as an argument for the left-wing side of the gun control argument by providing statistics of mass shootings in America over the last three decades.