In light of the school shooting in Florida there have been split opinions on how to resolve the issue of gun crime in America.
In the United States of America, the second amendment reads: “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This means that Americans have the right to own and keep guns and weapons. This law has been in place since 1791, almost for 227 years. This law is still in force, although there have been 8 school shootings already in 2018.
More than a third of Americans say they or someone in their household owns a gun. There are various estimates of how many guns are in the USA, it ranges from 270 million to 310 million guns. That’s almost one gun for every person in the whole of America.
Some people believe gun control should be stricter, yet others believe that gun control is not needed in America. Does there really have to be any more gun deaths in the USA? How many more innocent, young lives need to be ripped from this world before gun laws change?
Americans, who believe that gun control is not needed, feel attacked as others want to take their second amendment away from them. Most Americans who own a gun – or various guns – use them for self-defence and protection. The complete opposite of what many guns are actually used for in the USA; death and devastation. This means, that they only have the gun to protect themselves from dangers, such as robbers in their home.
For example, Brad Pitt said, after the Aurora theatre shooting in 2012:“America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA. It’s very strange but I feel better having a gun, I really do. I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel the house is completely safe if I don’t have one hidden somewhere. That’s my thinking, right or wrong.” Yet, some Americans who own guns believe that tighter gun control is unnecessary as relatively few people are killed by guns. This means, compared to the ways people die, guns are not a high number of these. For example, according to the “Leading Causes of Death Reports”, that between 1999 and 2013, Americans were 21.5 times more likely to die of heart disease and they were 18.7 more times likely to die from malignant tumours. Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have not been any outright changes in terms of gun control, yet six states expanded background checks to all gun sales. Also, in Washington state, they created the opportunity to take guns away from domestic abusers. So there has continued to be state-by-state progress, yet on whole, there has not been a great law change.
The president of the USA, Donald Trump – who American citizens have a split opinion on – has expressed his opinion on gun control for many years. He recently tweeted: “I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue – I hope!” Also in December 2012, Trump supported President Obama’s remarks about tighter gun control, after the Sandy Hook mass shooting. Yet in July 2015, he said during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that mass shootings were “a fact of life.” And again in October 2015, during a Republican debate Trump said he carries a gun “on occasion, sometimes a lot. I like to be unpredictable.” Furthermore, the president of a major gun violence prevention group challenged President Trump to a debate after Trumps response to the London Terror attack. Lastly, since the deadly Las Vegas shooting, Trump has avoided talks about gun control legislation and offered no policy solutions. Even though these things have been said, nothing has been done to prevent school and mass shootings. In my opinion, although these statistics show that guns are not the leading cause of death, I believe that the gun death toll is too high. In Britain, after the tragic Dunblane massacre, The Conservative government legislated to ban higher caliber handguns in 1997. After the New Labour government swept to power that May, it added .22 caliber handguns to the prohibited list. Now, since the Dunblane school shooting and the change in law, there have been no school shootings in Britain. Personally, after my research I think that gun control should be tighter. I believe this as thousands of innocent people are shot and school shootings take place on a regular basis in America. Although, I do think that people who take an interest in shooting animals etc., should not be stopped. I think that a licence should be involved to own a gun and only for use of hunting animals. Through creating this article I have learned a lot and have had my eyes opened to how large and serious this problem is in America.
