February 23, 2018[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n an article by News 9, we learn about a 12 year old girl took her life into her hands when a stranger broke into her home. He kicked in her back door and made his way into the home. The young girl called her mother who told her to hide in a closet with the family gun and call 911. The stranger made his way through the house and proceeded to open the closet door. That is when the 12 year old made the life saving choice firing through the door. The bullet hit the man who was identified as 32 year old Stacy Jones. He ran but shortly was taken down by officers. He was released from the hospital with minimal injuries. The young girl was unharmed due to her quick actions which saved her life. There are countless stories like these of guns saving a person’s life because of the second amendment.
Recent mass shootings
On February 14th, 17 people were killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. The shooter Nikolas Cruz was considered a threat and was being treated in a mental health center but had stopped the treatment. He had been expelled and wasn’t allowed on the the school grounds due to his behavior.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”He had been getting treatment at a mental health clinic, but he had stopped. He had been expelled from school for discipline problems.”[/perfectpullquote]
On October 1st, the Las Vegas shooting left 58 people dead. The shooting is considered the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history. According to Independent, Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock likely had a severe mental illness that was probably undiagnosed, according to sources close to the police investigation. Mass shootings are a horrific tragedy that no person should have to go through. The gun did not plan to take the lives of people, the gun did not pull the trigger. A person did, whether they are mentally ill or not they did it and should be punished for it, not all of america.
Why do people believe in gun control?
Many people believe gun control is the solution to mass shootings and having loved ones taken away from us. Gun related crimes tear families apart and are devastating.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”It’s too much to even process all these devastated families who will have to live with this pain forever because one person with a violent and insane voice in his head managed to stockpile a collection of high-powered rifles, and used them to shoot people”.[/perfectpullquote]
After the recent Las Vegas shooting where 59 were killed and 500 were wounded Jimmy Kimmel shared a statement saying “It’s too much to even process all these devastated families who will have to live with this pain forever because one person with a violent and insane voice in his head managed to stockpile a collection of high-powered rifles, and used them to shoot people”. There are countless quotes like these from people and they are right. No family should have to go through the devastation that goes along with a shooting. We need to realize that taking away guns isn’t going to stop the pain or these horrific shootings, it will only take away an important right and way to defend ourselves.
Constitutional Rights
The Constitution was signed in September of 1787 during the Philadelphia Convention by 39 delegates. The second amendment guarantees that the people will have a way to defend themselves if the need may come around. It 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.” The second amendment gives us the right to bear arms for defence. Without the amendment, we risk having other parts of the constitution taken away and not having the right to defend them. Thomas Jefferson stated, “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: Those who fear and distrust the people and Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe depository of the public interest.”
Banning Guns Won’t Work
Banning weapons to reduce the amount of gun related deaths would do as much good as banning alcohol to reduce the amount of drunk driving deaths. It makes no sense. The debate of gun control has been going on for years and asks us, who is more trustworthy, the government or citizens of the country. When it comes to the gun control argument there are so many misunderstandings it’s hard to know where to start. People in favor of gun control believe we should take away and limit guns to stop gun related tragedies. Maybe instead of taking away the constitutional right to bear arms from law abiding citizens we should create a law saying you can’t kill people. But wait, we already have one. This shows that even though there is a law in place, people aren’t going to follow it. These new laws pro gun control groups try to propose only end up punishing law abiding citizens and putting them in danger.
Statistics proving gun control is ineffective
According to ProCon, Mexico is seen to have the strictest gun control laws in the world. In 2012 they had over 11,300 gun related murders compared to the U.S. that had a little over 9,100 gun murders. A study in 2013 found that between 1980 and 2009 , “assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level” and “states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders.” There has been a huge decrease in firearm related crime in the U.S. even though the number of firearms keeps increasing dramatically. We now have more guns than the population and crime has gone down.
We can’t take guns from criminals
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns[/perfectpullquote]
Criminals don’t obey the law. There job would be made so much easier if we took away the rights of the citizens to defend themselves and each other. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns and no law is going to stop that. Most criminals buy their guns illegally or steal them. This allows them to completely bypass in depth background checks and other regulations set up.
Shootings happen in gun free zones
According to RedState, “98.4 percent of mass shootings as defined by the FBI have occurred on gun-free zones, with just 1.6 percent occurring where citizens are allowed to have firearms with them”. Trump recently released a statement suggesting teachers that are trusted and adept at doing so carry a gun in the schools. This would give students and staff a way to defend themselves and cut down mass shootings. Mass shooters don’t want to go to a place where their actions will be countered. The only person that can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.
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Hayley
The thing with making more laws on guns is it wouldn’t be effective. The people causing mass shootings are LAW BREAKERS. They don’t follow the rules so why make it harder for hunters or people just wanting a gun for protection.
StudentBlogger
A well-written post. I agree 100%– and I appreciate the counter-argument section included. Well done!
Adam
The founders believed that the Amendments still contained to this day, in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution, were all God given rights afforded to us by a creator, and although they disagreed on how involved religion should be in the creation of the country, they saw the importance of a moral and ethical society with limited government, god given rights and a way to overthrow that government in case those rights were under threat. Thus, the second amendment was born.
Adam
I liked your post. Nice work!
Megan
I agree with your stance on this argument, except when you argue, “Of the mass shootings between 1982 through 2012, 66 percent of the firearms used were handguns. Taking away assault rifles would not end mass shootings. It gives the government one more step toward taking away the second amendment.” Based on this information, 34% of mass shootings were carried out with guns other than handguns. If the US made it substantially harder for people to get guns other than handguns, up to 34% of the people who died in mass shootings would still be alive today. I believe losing a part of our second amendment is worth those lives.
Sam
More than likely, those people who used rifles still would have shot people and there still would be a death toll on those mass shootings that didn’t use a handgun. The only difference if you made rifles illegal would be that the handgun numbers would increase. Those people would still have a gun and the idea to go shoot people.
addie
Blog looks good, keep up the good work!
Nathan
Actually, as we learned in US History this year, the second amendment was introduced because our small population could not create a military. Meaning if another country were to invade us. We were the military. After all these years now we have a military, so guns are only used for three jobs now, hunting, showing off, and killing innocents. As the Washington post states in https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/05/guns-in-the-united-states-one-for-every-man-woman-and-child-and-then-some/?utm_term=.f819f1c3dc29, there are 40 million more guns than people in the United States. Not including the military which needs guns. Not everyone likes hunting in the US so it is ironic of that statistic. Yes, mental health is a problem with this, so how are we able to give guns to the mentally ill? Just shows that the gun industry is not taking the correct precautions when dealing their product. If we are able to be our own military and bad people can be in their own military, then we have a problem. There is no one for us to fight if we are our own military, except ourselves. It is the only groups we can get to. I do not believe we should eliminate guns, but we cannot make mistakes on who has them. That has been what has happened in the US>
TriggerWarning
You’re forgetting the other use of guns: protection.
Adam
Yeah, the Amendments main purpose is defending against a threat, whether that be at home or abroad. What do I mean by that? Well, that means the Second Amendment was created to protect a citizens individual rights. That includes fighting domestic threats such as:
A tyrannical government
Domestic invader
OR
Foreign invader
Cheslea
Guns should not be taken away from the general public entirely, but why do we need more papers and registrations for our cars than our guns? Why is it that my grandfather, a convicted criminal, can have a pistol sitting in his apartment right now? Why is it that you can buy a gun at Walmart any time you want to? Why is it that at any gun convention you can walk up to a vendor and by a gun without any sort of background check or mental health assessment? Why is it that guns are at such easy access to anybody who decides they want one? Gun control is obviously not the one solution to these mass shootings, these school shootings, these individual murders. But it’s a step in the right direction. Why should we not take every step possible to keep every child in this country safe when they are at school? My three-year-old nephew shouldn’t have to worry about his light up PJ Masks sneakers drawing attention to himself when he starts preschool. Nobody should have to be this constantly scared that the classmate next to them could pull a gun out of their bag. Maybe if it was harder to get those guns, we wouldn’t have to be so fearful.
TriggerWarning
But how can you make it harder for these people with mental issues if they haven’t yet convicted a crime? Because at that point they are a member of society who follows the rules everyone else does. They get a gun like everyone else and then shoot up a school. Stricter gun control isn’t gonna be the answer because it hinders the good people and not the bad.
Anonymous
If your grandfather is a convicted criminal it is illegal for him to own a firearm. That proves the point that even if guns are ban, criminals will find a way to get them and keep them much like he does.
Devon
It takes a lot to buy a firearm in the United States, a couple of months ago my family purchased a firearm. We were in the process of purchasing, not picking out, a firearm for over an hour. My dad had to give his Social Security #, address, credit card, and ID while we were checking out so that they could run a background check on him, to make sure he wasn’t a convicted felon or anything else that would disqualify him for his 2nd amendment right to own a firearm (https://www.whalenlawoffice.com/four-ways-an-individual-could-lose-hisher-second-amendment-rights/ ). That’s the reason that you can walk into stores like Walmart and Cabela’s is that they have an FFL (federal firearms license) and access to National Instant Background Check System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Instant_Criminal_Background_Check_System ) and because it’s your right as an American to do so.
I do on the other hand agree that there need to be more restrictions on gun shows. At gun shows “any person may sell a firearm to an unlicensed resident of the state where they reside, as long as they do not know or have reasonable cause to believe the person is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms” this is called the “gun show loophole”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole ). Gun shows don’t have a Federal Firearms Licences and they are not required to have or even use the National Instant Background Check System. I do not believe this should be allowed as it creates a dangerous pathway for guns to end up in the hands of criminals and other questionable people so that should be one aspect of gun control that needs reform. Also one flaw in the NIBCS is that is still allows for people with mental illness to purchase firearms legally which should also be changed.
A famous saying used in the blog is “The only person that can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun”, so that’s what I recommend to tackle the fear aspect. In 2016 there were approximately 453,000 unemployed trained veterans in United States and approximately 100,000 public schools. That’s about 4 armed veterans that could be employed to protect schools from mass shootings. It would kill 2 birds with one stone. It would provide much needed protection at schools, and give people who have already fought for our country a job and an opportunity to continue to protect American citizens.
StudentBlogger
I commend you for your amazing counter-comment. Well done, Devon.
Torii
I agree with you. As a family who owns plenty of guns for hunting and protection, background checks need to be better and the age limit needs to be raised to 21. If you can’t drink a beer legally you shouldn’t be able to own a weapon legally. However, first and foremost, has it ever crossed your mind that we have more protection at our airports than we do at our schools? I can’t bring a bottle of coke on an airplane but somebody can shoot up an entire school in a matter of minutes. I think it’s ridiculous, our schools need higher security.
TriggerWarning
This post made me so happy because finally people can see that the higher the gun control the higher the gun related crime. Stricter gun control makes it harder for good, law abiding citizens to obtain firearms for protection, hunting, or whatever they want to do with it. However, in no way does that affect the “outlaws” you had mentioned. They may have a new problem to overcome, but people are like water, if you hit a wall, you’ll find a way around it.
StudentBlogger
Although I can see where you’re coming from, I’ll have to disagree with some things. Like a different comment said, it’s insane that you can buy a gun before you’re even allowed to drink. Additionally, in the Florida incident, if he was being treated for mental illnesses, he should not have been able to even get his hands on all the guns he was in possession of. Mental illnesses are definitely part of the problem, but so is that these people still have the ability to own these weapons that are taking the lives of many and destroying their families life. Don’t you think 18 SCHOOL shootings (there are many other shootings that have happened as well) is too many, not even just in the 2 months they’ve occured, but to ever happen?
Jonny
I think we should have stricter laws on who gets them. We already have strict laws about it but we need to have even further back round checks. I also believe also have to follow the right protocol when dealing with this type of thing. The F.B.I did not and it cost us lives, while even here through the recent threats to our school our admin took the correct protocols and I think we need to focus on those kinds of things to
Anonymous
Ok, I agree that gun control may not be the answer at all times. However, I sincerely disagree with the fact that a person can buy a gun before they can legally drink as the legal drinking age is 21 and you can purchase a gun at 18. Not that I am a raging alcoholic or anything, but I believe at least the age you can get a gun should be moved to 21, not stay at 18. But I also know the it’s not necessarily that the legal guns are the issue. We also have to agree that when the Constitution was made in 1787, and the gun that was used in the recent Florida shooting (AR-15) wasn’t introduced until the Vietnam War, so the delegates who wrote the Constitution never had an ¨Assault Rifle¨ in mind.
Sam
An AR-15 is not an “assault rifle.” The AR stands for Armalite rifle, the company who made the original rifle. An assault rifle would be an M4, which is fully automatic and illegal to the public.
Adam
Think about this way. Your using the drinking age as an example correct? The drinking age is 21 and the age to legally buy a gun is 18 right? Ok, so while we are discussing age, what about getting a license at 16? Car fatalities FAR outpace those of gun fatalities. Especially when it comes to young and inexperienced drivers. Does that mean we should make getting a license more difficult? Should we ban teens from driving vehicles that go over a certain speed? Most teens would answer no. Now I know what your going to say, ¨Well a guns only purpose is to kill, (which it is) whereas a car is only used to get you from A to B. Ok, sure. But think about this way, every time your driving, your endangering others. No matter how good of a driver think you are, your still putting people at risk every time you drive. A gun on the other hand, can be used entirely passively. If I have a gun on my hip, I am danger to no one. Correct? So, if your going to compare the drinking age of 21, (which is actually a sexist law that targets men, considering the male brain does not usually finish development until age 25, while most women´s brains finish at 21) you should at least consider that there are many other activities that people around the country partake in every day that are much more dangerous than that of shooting guns. Guns have been strongly embedded into the American culture, just like cars. Also, to the people who keep saying, ¨The founding fathers did not have in mind AR-15´s when they wrote the second amendment¨ I have a question for you, do you honestly believe the founders had not predicted ANY technological advancement of any kind? If they were that stupid, then boy, I´m not sure why we still follow the Constitution to this day!
Adam
(Sorry for the typos)
Hayley
Agreed!
Joey
I see your side of the story, but I think you would have better defended your side without using only conservative media outlets like PragerU and Redstate. I also believe our founding fathers made amendments because they didn’t predict the new technologies today and how it plays a role in our society today. Further more I don’t see the point in owning a semi automatic firearms. Some types of gun control is good, like no guns are allowed in schools, and you must have a background check before owning guns. Even though I disagree I would like to say thank you for sharing your opinion.
Kaylee
A semi auto rifle is a rifle that fires a single round everytime the trigger is pulled and is legal. A fully automatic rifle which fires continuously is illegal as well as the 3 round burst for citizens to use.
Adam
To add to Kaylees point:
¨A semi auto rifle is a rifle that fires a single round everytime the trigger is pulled and is legal.¨
This would also include banning nearly all pistols, as most pistols are semi auto. Furthermore, you are legally required to have a federal background check conducted on yourself before purchasing a firearm. This means all individuals who have been convicted of a felony cannot purchase a firearm. I encourage you to conduct more research into the topic yourself if your interested, (and I do not mean this in a condescending way) as many people are not well educated on the subject. I myself am not an expert on the subject, but would again encourage you to conduct your own research.
Adam
No offense Joey, but I do not think your going to find very many leftist websites supporting the Second Amendment. Especially after the recent shooting. Just saying. Not saying their are not any out there, but just saying.