Gun control is without a doubt a tentative issue which should be dealt with in a way that preserves people’s right to defend themselves but also preserves human life. We live in an age where children use guns to settle arguments, something has to be done, but who’s really at fault?
I think if a child shoots another child, that child has no concept of right and wrong or life and death and the parents need to stop blaming guns for their own failings, the problem isn’t that guns exist it’s that parents are unaware of their children possessing them or that they just don’t care that their child is having problems at school.
Schools try to stop kids bringing guns to schools with metal detectors but that doesn’t deal with the root problem, it’s treating the symptom instead of the disease. Metal detectors just limits shooting taking place in school it doesn’t actually stop them. It’s a cop out. It’s just a way to limit the schools liability and make a school like a prison. They don’t care whether the kids die only that they don’t die on school property.
"Gun violence in and around our schools is simply unconscionable and must end.”
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (CNN. January 31 2013)
It just seems like a PR campaign, not that gun violence should end, just that it should end in schools, surely it should just be ended but obviously they realise that’s impossible.
Vice President Joe Biden talks more thorough Back ground checks, mental health checks, stricter checks at gun shows, penalties for straw purchasers, people who buy guns to give them to other people but why does it take a tragedy to have these issues addressed?
Biden comments on the ban on assault rifles active from 1994 to 2004 emphasising that it may have made policing easier but he goes on to say that assault rifles and the rate of fire aren’t the problem aren’t the problem. The actual problem lies in magazine capacity, Bide talks briefly on the Connecticut shooting perpetrated by Adam Lanza, stating the high body count was due to the fact he used a gun with a thirty round capacity. “Maybe if he took longer, maybe one more kid would be alive” (Biden 2013)
I personally think both those argument are ridiculous, the rate of fire and the capacity of the gun have nothing to do with gun violence. Banning assault weapons won’t get rid of gun crime, it just means the killers can kill a little bit less. If they can’t get hold of an ak47 they’ll use a shotgun, if they can’t get a shotgun they’ll use a handgun and if they can’t get a handgun they’ll use a knife, if they can’t use a knife they’ll use a fork.
The problem isn’t how efficient Americas psychos are at killing the problem is that they’re killing in the first place. We should be trying to prevent school shootings not trying making them nicer, this is not parking tickets we’re talking about, we’re talking about people killing each other, there’s no middle ground there’s life or death, all or nothing. So either ban all guns or don’t bother and try to find a way to stop people losing their minds
I can tell where people are coming from, they think if people didn’t have access to assault rifles they wouldn’t pluck up the courage to go on shootings but Virginia tech is the worst school shooting in American history and the perpetrator of that crime used handguns. So it doesn’t really make a difference, if a crazy person wants to go on a shooting spree he will, so we should be trying to prevent help these people not trying to take their toys.
The registering gun owners makes sense but Executive Vice president of the NRA Wayne LaPierre raises a good point in that it infringes not only on Americans right to bear arms but also on their right to privacy but that’s what this argument boils down to, are you going to give up your freedom/privacy or your guns? The question you should be asking right back is; why should I have to choose between them?
“A 14-year-old student suffered a gunshot wound to the head Thursday outside a middle
“A teen who performed at events around President Barack Obama's inauguration was shot to
death in Chicago this week, and now her story has become part of the debate in Washington over gun violence nationwide” CNN. Chicago. 2013. Television
Memoli, Michael. A. “Biden Presses for Action on Gun Measures” L.A Times January 26
2013: Print
Shear, Michael. D. “N.R.A Leader Denounces Obama’s Call for Gun Control” The New York
Times January 22, 2013: Print
