The Necessary Control Of Guns

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Jeremiah Sellers

Mrs. Etheridge

AP Government

The Necessary Control of Guns

People have the right to keep and bear arms. It was written in the constitution that made up this country, and it gives people the ability to defend themselves. Self defense is a basic right, and without bearing arms people may not be able to defend against those who acquire weapons and use them for wrongful purposes. Gun control laws put restrictions on one of our most important constitutional rights, but is that a bad thing? Gun control laws are important to the country, because many lives can be saved through simple background checks and being cautious of who is receiving guns. The United States has fallen under a series of gun shootings in recent years, and it is time for extensive gun control laws to protect the country in the years to come.

There are scores of people that believe gun control laws will bring a restoration to the nation. Those who are pro gun control make claims that the lack of gun control is destroying the nation, and they are right. Recent public shootings have shown us that the problem isn’t that too many people have guns, but rather too many of the wrong people have guns. This is a problem that has no true solution, because guns have a way of getting into the wrong hands. The next best thing is to minimize the threat as much as possible. Minimization is done through gun control laws.

Members of the National Rifle Association worry that the gun control laws are dangerous, because they believe them to be threatening the Second Amendment. This is not the idea behind the laws put on guns. The gun control laws are not made to ban guns, but instead to put guns in safer hands. Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, the selling of guns to criminals and the mentally ill is prohibited. That is a gun law that has been put into place, and there have been no arguments against this law being unconstitutional. Criminals and the mentally ill aren’t given their constitutional right to bear arms, but there are few arguments on this specific topic. There are no arguments, because the logic behind this law is sound, and it makes the world a safer place. Although this is not deeply considered unconstitutional by the National Rifle Association, arguments are frequently made about other gun control laws being unconstitutional. They focus on the limited magazines, and what is considered an "illegal assault rifle". The fact that constitutionality is the basis of their arguments should discredit many of the arguments due to the selective nature of what the National Rifle Association chooses to name unconstitutional.

New gun control laws have recently been established in Albany, New York. President of the National Rifle Association, David Keene, announces to gun law opponents:

"I'm here to join you in protesting the fact that your governor is willing to sacrifice the constitution, your rights as citizens and the prerogatives of his legislature on the altar of his own ambition and on the ego of Michael Bloomberg of New York City" (Virtanen).

This attack on Michael Bloomberg and gun control laws is on a claim that the laws break the constitutional amendment that grants the right to bear arms. This claim could be made about the Gun Control Act of 1968, but it isn’t. The reason behind this is that the National Rifle Association is not truly concerned about the constitution. Their concerns are purely over what types of weapons they are allowed, and the amount of bullets they can hold in those weapons. The problem with this thinking is that it is done out of fear instead of rational thought. Opponents of gun laws seem to see gun laws as only restrictions on their own weaponry. They believe that these said gun laws will make them vulnerable to those that wish to do them harm. The misconception behind this reasoning is that they aren’t taking into account the difficulty this will cause others to harm them. With less dangerous guns overall, there will also be less shootings. This along with the registration system will eliminate further risk of shooters. It isn’t realistic to eliminate all potential risk, but the gun laws make a strong attack against future shootings.

Bearing arms is a right that should not be given up, but the founders of our country left future generations the right to make adjustments. Adjustments in the case of guns are gun laws. They are adjustments because they mitigate danger.

"Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would" (John Adams).

As written by John Adams, the Second Amendment is meant to give people the right to protect themselves from violence. Protecting oneself from violence doesn’t have to require a person to have large magazines for shooting many times at once. This is more of an advantage for a shooter than for a crowd of people. If a shooter goes to a public setting with the intention of shooting many people, it is made much easier with large magazines to load numerous bullets into a gun. A shooter needs the extra bullets to take out more people between reloading. A law-abiding gun user only needs enough bullets to take out the shooter. This creates a death ratio in favor of the shooter, because the shooter has the ability to kill multiple people before being stopped. If there are fewer bullets in a magazine, the advantage is evened out. The shooter will have less possible victims, but the law-abiding citizen still has enough bullets to take out the shooter. This is just a simple example of how restrictions are needed to create a safer environment for the law-abiding citizens of the world. Fear drives people to fight for larger magazines and more powerful weapons, but it is that same fear that creates the danger that is feared. It is a vicious cycle that leads the nation into chaos and destruction. Gun laws must be carried out to lessen the danger of the fearful society that the nation has come to see.

Although the National Rifle Association blows many things out of proportion, there is some reason behind some of their opinions. In many cases, guns are acquired through illegal operations. Those guns are then used for crime, and the ordinary citizen is the one who takes the hit when new gun laws are created in response to said crimes. Opponents of gun control laws see the laws as taking away their own protection while criminals are unaffected. The truth is that bringing down the hammer on guns in general will in fact affect criminals. Increased restrictions on guns have an effect that isn’t stated directly in the laws themselves. Along with gun laws comes a natural increase in gun awareness. The distribution and the seriousness of guns becomes a greater sense to society as a whole and to individuals. There is a safety that comes with awareness, and that awareness may be safer than extra bullets in a magazine. Gun law opponents aren’t wrong to question the restrictions, but they are wrong to assume that the cost outweighs the benefit.

Background checks are a large part of gun control, and they are perhaps the most important piece in creating safety. There are over far over three-hundred million people living in the United States. Among those people are everyday citizens, criminals, police officers, mentally ill, and combinations of the lot. Though policemen have badges, there isn’t a badge for every other citizen telling whether they are law-abiding citizens, criminals, or something else. This is why background checks are an important step of the gun registration process. It would be dangerous to hand guns to strangers, so background checks are done to limit that danger. Any number of people can register for a gun, and the law-abiding citizens are left safer with the use of background checks. Although it is a constitutional right to bear arms, it doesn’t make sense to give guns to people that don’t have control of themselves. The risk is too great. Laws are put into place to control the distribution of guns so that guns can’t be left to be used completely out of control. No person would think it wise to give a gun to a five-year old child, so why give it to someone with just as little control over themselves. It would be absolute anarchy if people were just given guns because it is their right. The restrictions created through gun control laws aren’t so bad when put into these terms.

Control is defined as the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events. It has long been established that people kill people. Guns are just one of the many tools for murder. Opponents of gun control laws use this ideology to argue that guns shouldn’t have so many restrictions, because they don’t carry out the deed themselves. They don’t perceive the means for controlling guns as they should. The control of guns is directed at the actions of people. The logic behind it is elementary. If someone shoots another with a gun, you take away the gun. That person will then not be able to shoot another person. People may find other ways to carry out an action, but by restricting one option there are fewer scenarios in which that action can take place. Gun control laws may leave some more vulnerable, but it has the potential to save more lives in the end.

There is no reasonable argument that could support eliminating all gun control laws, because there is no one willing to throw all of the laws out of the mix of things. They are needed for protection against others. There is always a bigger fish. The fish in between don’t really matter when in the end the big fish is the only one left. There is always a more powerful weapon, so to try to hold onto the right to own dangerous weapons is pointless. There are too little restrictions on guns as it is currently. People are gunned down every year without any time to react. They have no time to react, because the ones shooting them down have weapons too quick and powerful to react to. With guns around that are too powerful, it becomes the first to draw more often than not. This leaves citizens vulnerable to the shootings of a lunatic or a villain. There is no fighting chance and people are left as victims. Gun restrictions help to prevent this disarray.

There is little defense to powerful weapons, and something must be done to keep citizens from attaining these dangerous weapons. They cause everyday citizens to be easy prey sitting in wide open view. An example of this is the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. A total of twelve people were killed just last year in a shooting by James Eagan Holmes. A crazed man came to a movie showing of The Dark Knight Rises, but it wasn’t the movie he came for. The man killed a total of twelve people. He also injured fifty-eight others. How did one man hurt so many people? Holmes had in possession dangerous assault rifles that left the victims unable to respond quickly enough to his sudden attack. There needs to be more control set on guns to prevent future shootings similar to this one. There is no question about it. Guns are made to be too powerful, and they need to be controlled in order to save the lives of those that fall victims. The killers may be people, but the guns are what give those people the power over others.

There isn’t much that can’t be said about the perks of gun control laws. People have the potential to be violent, and guns are potential mediums to expressing that violence. Guns may also be a shield for protection, but that protection is limited when the guns themselves are not limited. The National Rifle Association fight to end many of the gun control laws, and this action creates a danger for people. When people think of guns, they don’t often picture safety in their heads. They see gunfire, fear, and murder. Guns are only a need of protection because guns exist. If there were no guns, there would be no need for guns. The National Rifle Association fights for something that has no good cause. With more restrictions on all guns comes less of a need to release those restrictions. The gun control laws provide a declining degree of danger with the limits that it sets on guns. There is a point where those restrictions could prove to be dangerous, but that doesn’t mean that people should fight to remove as many restrictions as they can. Instead people should focus on finding the equilibrium that provides the most amount of protection with the least amount of violence. At the very least people should search for an equilibrium that provides an equal amount of protection against the violence of guns. With opponents of gun control laws fixated on the negative possibilities, they miss all of the possible benefits that gun control laws provide. They don’t see the good behind it and it leaves them to fear. People tend to fear what they do not understand, and this creates much of the problem that the opponents bring towards society. The National Rifle Association would be in further agreement if they were given more clarity.

No man is left defenseless without a gun. A gun is not the only way of offense, but it is the most powerful weapon that any man can get a hold of in this country. Guns may be purchased more for protection than harm, but guns tend to do more harm than they do protect. When looking at the number of people killed in mass shootings to shooters killed, the difference is tremendous. Many more victims are killed than shooters themselves, so the protection is minimal. Putting restrictions on the guns would better protect people than the guns could ever protect them. Restrictions on guns give the people a stronger advantage of the shooter which could make the difference in which person gets killed. There are only two types of victims of shooters. There are victims that die and victims that live. There isn’t a way to eliminate all potential shooters, so the next best thing is to save as many victims as possible. Gun control laws put this idea into effect by weakening the power of the shooters of the nation. Their power comes from the gun, and so their power really comes from the lack of gun control laws that are currently in play. A realization to this truth could change the lives of many, but a failure of this realization could leave our nation in shambles as people are continuously gunned down by powerful weapons.

Not all guns that are used in crime are obtained illegally. A common misconception by many people against gun control laws is that most shooters are acquiring their weapons illegally. Because of this misconception, people believe that the gun control laws will leave them as open targets to all of the shooters that are getting guns illegally. The truth is that most shooters obtain their guns through legal means.

http://media.heavy.com/media/2012/12/Mass-Shootings-Chart.jpg

As seen in the graph above, over 5 times as many mass shootings are done with legally obtained weapsons than illegal weapons. What does this mean? This means that the current system of distributing guns is not working properly. There aren’t enough restrictions, and registration of guns needs to be taken more seriously. Most shooters obtain ther guns legally, and this could be seen as a good thing in the sense that there is an easy solution. The solution is to make guns more difficult to obtain by just any potential threat. Thorough background checks could be what saves hundreds of thousands of lives. Opponents of gun control laws may argue against this reasoning. They may say that if it is more difficult for people to obtain weapons illegally, then more people will just obtain them illegally. That is actually a very strong possibility, but there would still be an overall decrease in the amount of dangerous people receiving guns. Acquiring weapons illegally doesn’t come easy for everyone, so this could lead to less people getting weapons overall. Less dangerous people with powerful weapons can eliminate threats and save lives in the end.

Gun control laws need to be further utilized. The current restrictions placed on guns are not great enough to make a great enough change in shootings for people to see. This means that either the restrictions aren’t being enforced correctly and efficiently, or the correct restrictions to guns have not yet been created. A correction needs to be made quickly, but it is difficult with all the opposition that is posed by the National Rifle Association. It is clear that a change must be made, because over the years shootings have gotten only worst. The National Rifle Association is fighting change, and this leaves the country tipping further towards the fire. Change will not happen on its own, and it is time that people realize that. Waiting will only dig a deeper whole, so affirmative action needs to be taken to head towards the opposite direction of where the nation is headed. The gun control laws can help the nation, but the gun control laws will be no help if the country keeps fighting them off. This leads to more shootings. People will blame the gun control laws for not work when future shootings occur, but the real fault will be that the gun control laws weren’t able to be utilized effectively because of resistance. An acceptance must occur before redemption.

The future of the United States depends on the changes made today. People are afraid of gun control laws, and this is preventing the change that is needed to protect the country. There will only be more shootings under the current circumstances. People can obtain guns far too easily, and they are often people that should not be given guns. People will continue to be killed if gun control laws aren’t considered rationally as they should be. Without restriction there is chaos, and that is already seen through receent shootings that could have been prevented. As the gun control laws become more enforced and more elaborated, the nation will see a decrease in violence and an increase in nationality. Less shootings will lead to a less divided America, because there will again be trust among the people. This change will be great, but it depends largely depends on the behavior of the people. Gun control laws could bring a peace over the nation instead of the violence that resides in it today.

Though the gun control laws are not perfect, they have the potential to bring this nation back up from its depths. They may not be able to put an end to all violence, but they have the ability to limit violence. Without gun control laws, there will be no change in amount of massacres, except for the probable increase in the future. There is nothing that can be said or done to make people less inclined to kill, but gun control laws could limit the availability of tools used to kill. Gun control laws are a major step towards the right direction, and they must be enforced to bring the killings to a halt. Opponents of gun control laws are opponents to life in that they are denying the act that would save the most lives. The National Rifle Association must get over its fear mongering that has prevented gun control laws from going into effect as would be best for the nation. Gun control laws are the best way to decrease the shootings of the United States, and if they are further developed and enforced the nation will be lead towards a future with less violence.