Essay on Gun Control

Gun Control - Page One

Crime and guns. The two seem to be cohesive with each other, but are they really associated with one another? Do guns lead to crimes? Do laws placing restrictions on firearm ownership really protect citizens or do they promote opportunities for criminals to take advantage of?

Gun violence is a regularly debated political issue in the United States, considering that 30,000 people die from a gunshot each year. Gun-related violence is most common in poor urban areas and frequently associated with gang violence, often involving male juveniles or young adult males. High-profile mass shootings have fueled debate over gun policies, even though these events are relatively rare. In 2010, there were 358 murders involving rifles. Murders involving the use of handguns in the U.S. that same year totaled 6,009, with another 1,939 murders with the firearm type unreported. High-profile assassinations such as those of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Beltway Sniper Attacks involved the use of rifles, usually with some sort of advanced sighting scopes, from unknown or concealed locations. Handguns figured in the Virginia Tech shooting, Binghampton massacre, Fort Hood massacre, Oikos University shooting and 2011 Tuscan shooting. Assailants with multiple weapons committed the Aurora theater shooting, and the Columbine high school shooting.

In 2009, according to the United Nations Office Of Drugs And Crimes, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm. There were 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicide deaths, and 11,078 firearm-related homicide deaths in the United States.

Gun Control - Page Two A National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (NSPOF), conducted in 1994, indicated that Americans owned 192 million guns: 36% rifles, 34% handguns, 26% shotguns, and 4% other types of long guns.
Most firearm owners owned multiple firearms, with the NSPOF survey indicating 25% of adults owned firearms. In the United States, 11% of households reported actively being involved in hunting with the remaining firearm owners having guns for self-protection and other reasons. Throughout the 1970's and much of the 1980's, the rate of gun ownership in the home ranged from 45-50%. Rapid increases in gun purchases characterized by exceptionally large crowds accruing at gun vendors and gun shows is consistently observed due to the possibility of increased gun control following highly publicized mass murders.
President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, addressed the issue in his speech after being reelected for his second term in 2012. The speech goes as the following: ''Our first task as a society is to keep our children safe....we can't push this off any longer....I respect our strong tradition of gun ownership...more than 900 victims have died of gun violence since Sandy Hook...I'm putting forward a proposal...and intend to use the weight of this office to achieve them...if there is anything we can do to reduce this violence, then we've got an obligation to try.''

The President then called for these actions following the speech: First, a focus on universal background checks, considering that right now some fourty percent of gun sales take place without background checks being practiced. Secondly, that limiting

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