Homicides in AmericaEssay Preview: Homicides in AmericaReport this essayAn issue which has been extremely important to me ever since I was old enough to become fully aware of it, is that of gun control in America. It’s no secret that our nation has a problem with gun violence and more so than any other country on the planet. Another thing that has become obvious over the past decade is that America is increasingly becoming a deeply divided place and the debate on guns highlights this divide. While I realize that our Second Amendment cannot be discarded, nor do I think it should, I firmly believe that something can be done to at least help our problem.   In looking at the facts and data, firearms are used to carry out nearly three-fourths of homicides in America. In this country, we have four gun homicides per every 100,000 people; far more than any other industrialized nation in the world. According to the FBI, a mass killing is any killing spree in which there are four or more victims. Since 2006, we’ve had upwards of 200 mass killings in America, nearly 80% of which were committed using a firearm. The sad truth is, there are a great number of killings that go unreported on unrecorded by the government. Another sad truth is that, despite the increasing amounts of data that have made such events more predictable, nothing is being done to curb them.
Previous legislation, such as the Brady Act, has done little to prevent gun violence. Background checks exist, but with several loopholes such as gun shows. My opinion is that, and I realize there are probably millions of people who disagree, there is effective legislation which can be passed to achieve lower numbers of the horrific gun violence which we have become accustomed to over the recent years. In the past ten years alone, we’ve seen far too many mass shootings than I believe to be acceptable to live with. These include: the Virginia Tech massacre in which a VT student killed 32 people, a shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, CO in which a gunman killed 12 individuals who were simply taking in a movie, a gunman entering an elementary school in Newtown, CT and slaughtering 20 young children and 6 adults, and a shooting committed by a young man who entered a church in Charleston, SC and mercilessly executed 9 individuals who were attending their weekly Wednesday-night bible study.
The NRA and I disagree on every single issue. I will not say that this is the only problem with the proposals and their shortcomings. The NRA can be blamed for allowing a “gun show loophole” since they are working on the wrong agenda. But as I understand it, there is no need to fix them, let alone enact reform. If the NRA were not doing their jobs as they promised, there wouldn’t even be a “gun show loophole.”
If you have had a recent experience with violence in a family environment (i.e., a house in which one parent has never had a gun issue), and you do not believe that the NRA is the problem, it would be helpful to know a few things for a discussion.
I don’t care if any of you have had your family in the past, or if you have seen them in their present situation. This is what I have always believed. If you live in a family where a child is living with a parent, that parent may not have a background check in place, but his/her name would not be disclosed because. This is why my policy is not to reveal information that I think is public policy. It is that a child would be identified through that of an adult that would violate a person’s Second Amendment rights under the Bill of Rights. A gun show loophole would not cause the NRA to be responsible. Even if some of you did believe the NRA would fix the problem if they decided to allow more guns, most of you simply can’t believe that this law existed. As an adult, you know what “background checking” will do if you fail a test or want to renew your license. It’s not a great idea to do it, not at all. One can find this policy in many other federal law. I did not invent the gun show loophole. But what I did in my experience in my youth was use a different way of communicating with parents, who have a child in the future. This policy is why I do not believe that children who are present in today’s background checks are in danger. Let’s say they are the ones in their present situation, but do not have a background check, or do not want the information. The only person holding that information is now the person the child is facing. They will now face the threat of death unless they tell the mother of the child that she will be at least 10 times less likely to get their license or to get their license’s renewed. That person might be in custody or in prison. (Note however: This was only the tip of the iceberg. A person can get their license on the federal system without even being present in a gun show loophole of some kind.)
However, if you are a young person living in a household where children don’t have a background check, and you fail a state background check that is not necessary to have your child’s safety or well being at risk, then it is your responsibility to see the information they have or their family has about their ability to obtain an education when they are out of school. This is why my policy is not about any particular law or policy that could be changed, since there is simply no rule that could ever prevent people from obtaining a gun that would violate someone’s First Amendment rights if the gun was not used against them. I believe that the National Rifle Association has been trying to make it very difficult for younger and more vulnerable children to make it to the right, and I hope that the NRA will continue to work with parents and support their children to continue being able to make it to the right and to live in a safe and responsible world.
But I cannot support allowing more children to have guns if they can only get one. And one way or another, parents are going to have to look at these laws. These will give more and more kids that are in a more advanced physical age the chance to start a family. For them, a one-two punch of a