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Milton Yarbrough

Emma Allen

ENGL 1113

April 9, 2017

Gun Control: Should We Ban Guns?

Listen, Bob. A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel-

or an axe or a saddle or a stove or anything. Think of it always that way. A gun is as good- and

as bad- as the man who carries it. Remember that, (Schaefer). Is a quote from the 1949 book

Shane that was later turned into a movie in 1953 and really shows the difference in popular

media between then and now. Gun Control is something that has been on the minds of

lawmakers ever since the Bill of Rights in 1791 (US Const., amend. II) which was added to the

Constitution to protect the American people from their government. It has a long and sometimes

messy history with the American people and is a controversial topic even to this day. In this

paper, I will be analyzing an article showing the stance of those who support gun regulation. The

article I am going to be analyzing was written by Patrick Radden Keefe a staff writer for The

New Yorker for over ten years. He has received many awards such as the National Magazine

Award for Feature Writing in 2014, he was also a finalist for the National Magazine Award for

Reporting in 2015 and 2016.

The article he writes about gun control was published on December 15, 2012 after the

shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut. In the beginning of his article, he

points out really how gun control policy passes he says like, for instance, gun controlit is only

a tragedy that can summon the political momentum for change. (Keefe) He then goes on to talk
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about how the original Gun Control Act that was passed in October 1968 followed the

assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. But he then goes on to state how

nothing happened after events in 2011 when a congressman was almost shot.

Keefe then gets on the value of safety, saying that after such events we see no new laws

or bills being past but instead a dramatic rise in the amount of gun sales. He then goes on to say

Ponder, for a second, the fact that I cannot walk into a C.V.S. today and purchase half-a-dozen

packages of Sudafed, but I can walk into a gun dealership and purchase a .50 caliber rifle of the

sort that U.S. snipers use in Afghanistan, (Keefe) really showing just how easy it is to obtain

such high powered and really, weapons that are meant to kill. Keefe then goes on to really

question if the laws we have in the United States really keep us safe. He brings up a law that was

passed in Indiana around this time called the Castle Doctrine which was a revamping of the

regular self-defense laws saying that you are within the boundaries of the law if to shoot and kill

someone who enters your property but, the law then goes further extending its parameters saying

you can even shoot public servants, In other words: under certain circumstances, it is now

hypothetically legal under Indiana state law for you to shoot a cop. (Keefe)

Keefe then goes onto talk about why these laws that see mas if they would make us safer

and better for every American do not get passed. He says This country is already drowning in

gunsnearly three hundred million of them, (Keefe), he says that even if a piece of legislation

would be passed that because of the nearly three hundred million guns in the United States that

just banning the sale of certain types of firearms, typically those that can be automatic or of a

high caliber, would do nothing to get rid of those guns already in circulation. He then goes on to

say that even attempting a bill that confiscates those kind of firearms would be a direct threat to

the safety of the American people, because it would feed into fantasy of armed resistance to
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government tyranny that rallies the pro-gun base, (Keefe). He then brings up the example of

what happened when California implemented a ban on civilian ownership of the Barrett .50

caliber rifle, the owner of the company, Ronnie Barrett, would not sell any of those weapons to

law enforcement in California, saying that the authorities should not be able to have access to

more powerful firearms that the average citizen.

Keefe then goes on to present another idea for keeping the United States safer, and that

idea is the banning of high capacity magazines. He goes on to point out that at the writing of the

article it is not known whether the shooter at Sandy Hook used high capacity magazines. The

shooters that attacked representative Giffords in 2011, the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, the

shooting at Fort Hood in 2006 and the shooter at Aurora in 2012 specifically was able to shoot

seventy two people in under two minutes through the use of high capacity drum magazines.

Keefe then says that the only non-military context in which a high-capacity magazine proves

decisively useful for the shooter is one in which you are trying to mow down as many civilians

as possible before you get killed by a swat team, (Keefe). Another article by the Huffington

written by Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Carolyn McCarthy talks about the ban

of high capacity magazines. Starting with talking about the shooting in Tuscon in 2011 where the

shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, used a high capacity magazine for his Glock 19 handgun, only

being stopped when bystanders wrestled him to the ground while he was reloading. High

capacity magazines were banned from 1994 to 2004 when the federal assault weapons ban was

in place. Since its removal high capacity magazines are easily acceptable being able to be bought

in gun shops and even some sporting goods stores. First they say that guns are used to kill more

than 9500 people each year in the United States, by comparison 5900 American troops have died

while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past ten years, (Lautenberg and McCarthy). They
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then go on to bring up that another countries such as Japan, Germany, England, Wales and

Canada are home to 305 million people all together, which is close to the number of people who

live in the United States, and guns kill 450 people in these countries in an average year,

(Lautenberg and McCarthy). They then go on to recap the shootings in Arizona, Long Island

Railroad and Fort Hood shootings and at Virginia Tech all used high capacity magazines. They

point out how the NRA call high capacity magazines standard equipment for self-defense

handguns, but they agree with Keefe saying the only reason to supersize a handgun to two or

three times its original bullet capacity is because you want to kill a lot of people very quickly,

(Lautenberg and McCarthy). They end their article by saying that we shouldnt have to rely on

bystanders to stop a shooter when lethal weapons are in use, the responsibility rests with

congress and the president.

Keefe ends his article by really pulling on the heartstrings of his readers really evoking

the use of pathos. He talks about how the flag of the United States will fly at half mast until they

are raised, symbolic representing that after we mourn those who have passed we must move one

and become stronger as a nation. He says that gun lobby will hunker down after shootings

hoping that sense of urgency will pass and we will return to our regular daily lives and they will

continue to manipulate congress and keeping the American people in danger as they have so

many times before, (Keefe).

Gun control is something that needs to be addressed here in the United States and has a

big portion of the populace behind it. Researching this has shifted my opinion a little bit, I used

to be the type of person who was fully against gun control calling on the Second Amendment

and such, I was not a gun toting type of person but I believed that everyone should have the right

to bear arms. Reading these articles has made me realize just how dangerous high capacity
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magazines and I did not realize that they have been used in most mass shooting. They are

dangerous and are not needed for civilian use and should be only be available for use by the

police and the military. The safety of the American people should be at the top of list of the

American Government and should not be put off anymore, it is of the upmost importance and

should be treated as such.

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Works Cited

Shane. Directed by George Stevens, starring Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon

deWilde, Jack Palance, Paramount Pictures, 1953.

Schaefer, Jack. Shane. Houghton Mifflin, 1949.

Keefe, Patrick Radden. Making Gun Control Happen. The New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2012,

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/making-gun-control-happen

Lautenberg, Frank, and Carolyn McCarthy. "Why We Must Ban High-Capacity Gun

Magazines." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 06 Apr. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2017

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-frank-lautenberg/post_1905_b_845590.html