GUN CONTROL
In the amount of time it takes you to read this sentence, someone will be killed by a firearm. In the span of one day, 96 people will be killed. Most of these deaths are either accidental, a result of irresponsible uninformed handling, or violent criminal actions perpetrated with illegally obtained firearms.
Why? Why are people who don’t know how to be careful, or people who have proven themselves to be violent or mentally unstable, continually able to get their hands on guns? Even worse, these guns are not always illegal, but sold and endorsed legally under the second amendment. There are however, laws in place intended to prevent these very things from happening. We can see how well they are working.
Many people keep handguns in their home in case they need it for self-defense. However, having a gun in the home makes it three times more likely that someone will be shot and killed by a family member or loved one. It seems to me that the chance that something terrible will happen simply by having a gun in the house far outweighs the chance that you’ll actually need it to protect yourself or your family. We must ask ourselves, is the risk really worth it? As the late George Carlin once said, “a lot of the people who keep a gun at home for safety are the same ones who refuse to wear a seatbelt”.
Laws must be much more strict to prevent these extremely dangerous weapons from getting into the hands of the incapable, irresponsible, or malicious. As it is, 55 percent of arrestees claim that it is easy to get guns illegally. Also, 25 percent of Los Angles High School students say that they could easily get an illegal gun for $50 or less.
Despite these arguments, and several others like it, having been brought before congress, there has been little response. The last significant federal gun law was 1994’s Assault Weapons Ban, passed five years before the Columbine High School massacre. In recent years, Congress has considered several measures to...