Gun control is a very controversial subject because of the violent events that have occurred due to guns. There have been many mass shootings, street violence, and accidental deaths. The question is, “What do we do about this?” There are two different sides on the issue, liberals and conservatives..Liberals feel as though we should control guns better than before because there has been too much violence and too many lives lost.Conservatives think that we should keep things the same because it is our right to bear arms and additional gun control laws won’t change things. The issue of whether we should control them or not and it has been sort of a debate as of recently and neither side has been willing to give. We should control guns because there are too many people that have died from them, getting guns is too easy, and people who we do not want to get guns are still able to get them anyway.

Too many people die due to gun violence every day in the United States. In fact, Michael McLaughlin states that, “Three people are killed by a gun per hour and almost seven people are
shot every 60 minutes” (McLaughlin). This shows that the rate of gun-related deaths is off the charts. It is too high and something has to be done about it. These statistics are frightening. I do not want to live in a world that has that high of a rate for deaths due to gun violence. It is appalling and just plain unacceptable.

It is too easy to obtain guns. For example, Lauren Effron says that private gun sales are legal and no background checks are needed in Arizona (Effron). This proves that basically anyone can buy a gun legally if they do it privately. Gun restrictions need to be set into place that can prevent things like this from occurring. We need background checks because if we don’t have them, that means that anyone can purchase a gun. This would mean that people such as criminals could get their hands on guns and that is a problem.

Current gun laws attempt to restrict people who do not fit into the criteria of “fit” to wield a firearm from purchasing a gun. But do they really?  Mentally ill people can technically purchase firearms if they are not registered as being mentally ill. Furthermore, the system that we have currently is not sufficient because of the requirements needed to be put into the gun database as unfit to purchase a gun (Tanfani). One requirement is a formal health evaluation from a judge or a court ruling of insanity in which not everyone receives because most weren’t diagnosed as mentally ill. This is detrimental because this means that the mentally ill can purchase firearms to possibly use on themselves or others. These laws need to be amplified so that these people are actually restricted from getting a hold of guns.

A common argument against gun control is that “The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms.” This is actually not true. As Chief Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger called the concept that the 2nd Amendment protects all Americans’ rights to own guns, “The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies—the militias—would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires” (Sager). Every person in America doesn’t have the right to own guns People just tend to have the misconception that everyone has this right when it was intended to be solely purposed for militias for the protection of the state. The people of America have been misreading the Amendment for decades and it is time for them to open their eyes and truly understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment instead of taking it at face value to go out and buy guns for personal use. Guns were intended for armies, not everyday civilians. Nicely done, here.

Opponents of gun control argue that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The idea that guns don’t take part in violence is ludicrous. People can kill with anything if properly motivated but guns are easier to use and they are easier to obtain. For example, Josh Sager states,“By making killing easy, guns directly contribute to the thought process that must go into a killing and facilitate even higher body counts. Without guns, people would still kill others, but it would be far more difficult to accrue high body counts” (Sager). Guns are more efficient than any other method of killing. Guns do take part in the grand scheme of gun violence The people may have killed but the tool used is the actual device that murdered the victim. A suitable interpretation of this phrase would be “Guns kill people, people kill people.”

Gun control is an immense dilemma that we are currently dealing with. Guns need to be controlled and the current laws need to be altered so that they better control guns than they do currently. Think about the world today, every day you leave the safety of your house and go out into a world full of danger where you don’t know if you’re going to come back safe or not. Mentally ill obtaining guns, guns being distributed daily without many of the proper trials that are required to have passed being done so, people getting shot and killed at a drastic rate daily. Is that really the world we want to live in? We need to take a stand against gun violence and stop it before it claims any more lives.

Works Cited:
Effron, Lauren. "Guns in America: How Criminals Might Be Purchasing Weapons Easily, No Questions Asked." ABC News. ABC News Network, 16 July 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

McLaughlin, Michael. "Murders, Shootings And Gun Sales Per Day: An Average Day In United States." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

Sager, Josh. "Refuting Anti-Gun Control Arguments." The Progressive Cynic. N.p., Jan. 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.

Tanfani, Joseph. "Keeping Guns Away from People with Mental Illness Is a Complex Issue." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 21 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.