A Paper on Gun Control Policies in The United States

Different types of guns are some weapons that are allowed by the government to help increase the protection of an individual or groups of people. Despite the positive intention that people have towards the possession of guns in society, other people tend to misuse the privilege to do wrong. The presence of guns in the society means that there is a certain level of insecurity, that makes certain individuals seek more protection and self-defense for themselves and that is where guns come in. In the United States of America, there are many states and each has its own set of gun control policies that help to govern the use of guns. The increasing deaths and crimes related in the United States makes the gun control debate to be contested. Different people, groups, and parties have their own opinions concerning how much the regulations and the kind of regulations that ought to be put in place. On one side of the society, Americans who have guns want them for various protection reasons while the other side people are politically active and socially concerned and do not want them and it is discussed in the argumentative paper below.

Argument

In most states in America especially those that have lenient gun control policy are experiencing a rapid increase in gun-related deaths and crimes. According to author Nisbet, the population of people dying from gun-related incidents is over 30,000 and it is increasing at an increasing rate hence the need in tightening the gun control policies in the nation. Amongst the 30,000 Americans killed with the use of firearms, over 15,000 deaths are suicide, 12,000 Surname 2 peoples are from the homicide accounts, while the remaining 2,000 deaths are gun accidents. On the other side, the gun-related injuries whether accidental or intentional are about over 40,000 incidents and the numbers are increasing at an increasing rate. Meanwhile, in America, other one million crimes committed and recorded with the police are gun-related. People, groups, and parties are advocating for making the national political policy more strict since every American life matters and there should be protection for them whether legally to help reduce the use of the firearms in the streets. The lenient national gun control policies make the criminals have more space to conduct their crimes while the other people have time to commit suicide and at the end, innocent Americans lose their lives while others escape with gun injuries if not safe.

The gun control policy should stricter to help reduce cases of multiple killings and rampage killers that take the lives of Americans in vain. According to Jacobs, in America, if the guns did not exist multiple killings that have claimed many precious American lives more than two within a single episode would have not happened. The massacre that took place on the Long Island Railroad on December 7, 1993, the Columbine school shooting in April 1999 and other multiple homicides could not have taken place if the gun control policy was stricter. In the United States today, there are places that firearms are not allowed from the above bad past experiencing and still their many more places that should be added in that list. In places where their sales of alcohol, schools premises and their environs, and places where people go to watch animals race are some of the places that Americans are not allowed to carry their guns to help reduce homicides despite being a rare occurrence. The rampage killers are reducing at an increase since the United State Center for Disease Control in 1992 began investigating and Surname 3 tracking violence in schools especially deaths that are gun-related meaning the absence of guns is likely to help keep our schools safe.

The effort of the American government on gun control is becoming stronger since there is a federal background check before a licensed dealer sells firearms. The national gun control policy requires a strict federal background check by the licensed dealers to sell firearms to any person. Any licensed dealer of guns must call the FBI directly since in most of the states do not use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and one may fail because of various reasons. It is important for federal background check by the FBI since they have all citizens’ criminal records and they can easily crosscheck to help reduce selling firearms to former or aspiring criminals. The gun control policies of most states in America limits and prevent people who were once convicts of any crime that is punishable by more than a year in prison to buy firearms. People supporting the gun control policy proposed that any person who was once convicted for a crime punishable for many years are not eligible and will fail the federal background check. Some of the crimes that might be the cause of their imprisonment could be accomplished by the use of a gun and they may want to use the guns for revenge purposes. The American gun control policy requires a person to fail the federal background check if they were once convicted of domestic violence in any part of the nation since they are most likely to use the firearms to commit murder and suicide as a form of revenge. The American gun control policy needs to give the FBI the power to prevent a fugitive from buying a firearm from any licensed dealer since they might have escaped from captivity or they are in hiding after committing a crime from there hence they came from and hence he is termed dangerous.

Counter Arguments

It is wrong to advocate for gun control laws since some gun control laws will not always prevent criminals from doing wrong and obtaining guns and breaking the laws. In the United States over 62 mass shootings that took place between 1982 and 2012, more than 49 of the shooters used legally obtained guns and jointly, 143 guns possessed by the killers with most of them were obtained legally. In most of the gun-rights activist always want to take away guns from most of the law-abiding citizens even though they always ignore the guns that criminals have despite having their godfathers in the government. Anderson claimed that the Bureau of Justice Statistics in their May 2013 report, over 37.4% of state prison inmates who used, carried, and were in possession of the firearm while they were committing the crime that they were serving a prison sentence were obtained from a family member or friend who obtained a licensed gun from their family members. In Chicago, there was a ban on gun shops, shooting distance’ ranges, assault weapons, and high capacity magazines, in 2014 Chicago that had 2,089 shooting victims including at almost 390 murders. In Chicago, many guns were recovered Chicago between 2001 and Mar. 2012 the guns came from almost 50 states, and more the half came outside the states.

In most of the states in America, the gun control laws always tend to give too much power to the government mostly and the result is that the government becomes tyranny and it takes away all guns from citizens leaving them insecure. According to the Proscon.com, almost 57% of people that took the survey by Pew Research in February 2013, there comments concluded that the gun control laws always gave extreme power to the government that made them undermine the citizens. The National Rifle Association claimed that the Second Amendment made the Americans live under the tyranny of King George since all the wanted was Surname 5 inclusive of making sure that all the citizens were free especially from the newly created states that were to never subjugated in the future with the tyrant leaders. On January 7, 2013, in one of the interviews with Piers Morgan, the Second Amendment was termed to be never a duck hunting ground since they were to protect all the citizens from the tyrannical government since the citizens would never have any security background.

In the whole of America a nation, the implementation of gun control is unnecessary because relatively few people in the society died from the use of guns. The Center for Disease Control's leading Causes of Death Reports, in the years 1999 and 2013 was concluded to from medical causes that were medical, not gun-related. Many Americans die 21.5 times more likely because of heart-related disease. Some of the deadly killing causes of most Americans came from the lifestyle that people live. According to the Proscon.com, Americans are likely to die of malignant tumors that are almost 8,458,868 deaths while others are more likely to die of sugar-related causes which include diabetes and Alzheimer's equated either by accident, homicide, or suicide. Other health-related cause of death that takes many Americans include flu and related pneumonia, poisoning despite being either accidental homicide or suicide and traffic accidents since they claimed many lives between 1999 and 2013 compared to gun-related deaths. In the years between 1999 and 2013, deaths related to firearms were the twelfth leading compared to other causes of death. Internationally America’s firearm homicide cases have many exaggerations and they are ranked 28 in the world homicide rates since there were three gun murders per 100,000 people in 2012.

Most of the gun control laws that are trying to ban the assault weapons in the society, they are invading the rights of the gun owners for hunting and sport. Many people in America love hunting and in 2011 there were over 13.7 million hunters who were 16 years and above and Surname 6 they spent more than $7.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and other hunting equipment. The high-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns tend to be preferred by citizens who love hunting and in target shooting competitions each year. The National Shooting Sports Foundation claims that the assault weapons tend to be more often used are not less powerful than other hunting rifles. Hunting and target shooting competition create room for recreation activities that increase national unity among the citizens.

To conclude the essay, some of the gun control laws and policies such as the federal background checks and the micro stamping act as an invasion of privacy of citizens. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System has information that is personal such as the gun owners’ name, home addresses, mental health history, and criminal records among others. The American Civil Liberties Union worried that legislation by Senator Harry Reid in 2013 proposed for a federal background check was to give the government the authority to keep databases on the purchases of guns indefinitely. Such gun control laws are an invasion of privacy since there are worries that people are going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected. On the other side, micro stamping is similar since it requires a database of gun owners and the codes their guns would stamp on cartridge cases.

Works Cited

1. 'Gun Control - Pros & Cons - Procon.Org'. Gun Control, 2019, https://gun-control.procon.org/. Accessed 1 Sept 2019.
2. Anderson, Ken. Crime in Texas: Your Complete Guide to the Criminal Justice System. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Print. Pg 98
3. Cashin, John. Rifles and Shotguns: Safety, Selection and Use. , 2018. Print. Jacobs, James B. Can gun control work?. Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.
4. Kappas, J S. Traveler's Guide to the Firearm Laws of the Fifty States. Covington [Ky.: Traveler's Guide, 2017. Print.
5. Mark Woodward. “Texas Gun Laws | GunsToCarry Guide.” GunsToCarry, www.gunstocarry.com/gun-laws-state/texas-gun-laws/.
6. Maxwell, William E, Ernest Crain, and Adolfo Santos. Texas Politics Today. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2019. Print.
7. Nisbet, Lee. The gun control debate. Prometheus Books, 2001. Print.
8. Rand Corporation. The Science of Gun Policy: A Critical Synthesis of Research Evidence on the Effects of Gun Policies in the United States. , 2018. Internet resource. Star-Telegram, Fort Worth. “In 90 Seconds: Texas Gun Laws.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4emnMy8ZMt
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