Increase of Gun Laws | Teen Ink

Increase of Gun Laws

June 13, 2017
By Anonymous

The gun right topic is a well discussed topic in America. It is well discussed because many times a year guns are used in dangerous ways to harm people. People against guns argue that they are dangerous, and people who are fighting to keep control of guns say it gives them a source of protection in a crisis or emergency. My thought on guns is that guns do more harm to people than they do good. To back this up, in the U.S. 60 people die a day from guns. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).  I support gun control and the increase of rules to help protect people from gun related injury.

 

My first reason is that having guns is a safety hazard.  Gun related deaths take up a big chunk of deaths in America. In 2013 there were well over 35,000 deaths relating to guns according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Qui). People from big organizations, such as New York Times colonist Nicholas Kristoff, are against guns as well. His thoughts are, "More Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all of the wars in American history." That is a lot of death, meaning guns can be and is a huge safety hazard.


My other reason is that guns have been known to get into the hands of people who are known and represented as being potentially dangerous. These people have access to buying weapons through the internet. Since 2004 over 2,000 people on the FBI's terrorist search list have legally purchased weapons according to the U.S. Government Accountability Report. This means that  91% of suspected terrorists have attempted to buy guns. (U.S. Government Accountability Report). These are high numbers for potentially dangerous people getting hands on these lethal weapons, especially when it only takes one person to abuse their gun rights to kill a person.


Some people argue that guns are a source of protection in a crisis. In some cases this can be true and there are recent cases where guns have saved people's lives. I disagree with this because the number of incidents where guns were used legally in a crisis is just 1 justifiable killing for every 32 murders committed with guns (FBI's Supplemental Homicide Report). This is a very low legal to illegal death rate and adds up to about 1,000 legal justifiable kills a year, meaning most of the killing with guns is referred to as murder or suicide.


Guns are not in my favor because all of the negatives factors that come with them. They are a safety hazard, and they can get into the hands of dangerous people. Therefore I think there should be an increase in the gun rules. Making a new law that states if you have a gun and are not using it for hunting that you have to take a test to make sure you are safe with the gun or it will be taken away. It will increase the safety for all gun users and decrease the number of guns getting into dangerous hands. In my opinion proposing a law like this on top of safer gun use will also make the number of deaths a year go down significantly.




Works Cited
Martelle, Scott. “Gun and Self-Defense Statistics That Might Surprise You -- and the NRA.”Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 2015.


Qiu, Linda. "7 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT GUNS." Tampa Bay Times, Jun 15 2016, pp. 4. US Newsstream, 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Firearm Mortality
By State: 2014." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 03 Feb.2017.

"U.S. Accountability Reports and Agency Financial Reports." U.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of State, n.d. Web. 13 June 2017.



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