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Against Gun Ownership Position in U.S

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The issues of gun control affect the entire world, with the U.S acting as the center of controversy concerning these laws as America leads other nations in the number of most people killed by guns. This comes after a series of mass shootings across the nation, which leaves many people dead and others injured. In addition, statistics show that U.S is the nation with the highest firearm-homicide rate.

Background and Thesis

The role of guns in the community has been the subject of debate for long. In fact, people have argued whether gun ownership rights protects people as defense or protects people from crime for 200 years. On one side, some people think guns play no role in private citizens. On the other side, some people believe that guns form the basis of protecting human rights. Human life is important and should be protected and treasured, which is why America should ban gun ownership to eradicate ugly statistics like the 11,000 and 22,000 people dying from homicides with firearm and committing gun-related suicide in 2013 alone.

First, gun ownership should be banned to reduce the number of suicide and unintended shootings. Surprisingly, suicides form the largest number of deaths by guns in U.S, as proposed to homicides. For example, while there were 147,000 cases of firearm-related suicides in 1990-1997, there were 100,000 firearm related homicides the same year (Finferhut and Cox et al., 1998). The victims of estimated 90,000 of the homicides used handguns thanks to the gun’s simplicity as well as high lethality, which make handguns the perfect suicide machines. The main issue is not how handguns make people suicidal, but is their ready availability that accelerates their use in suicide attempts.

This is bad especially considering everyone knows that using firearms most definitely guarantees fatality from suicide attempts. People that live with guns have more chances of commuting suicide than those without guns at close proximity. This proves that there exists a rich relationship between suicide and handgun ownership. In fact, suicide is the main cause of death among people who buy guns within the first year after purchase. On the other hand, numerous cases of unintentional shootings involving children hit news outlets worldwide daily.

For instance 981 people died as victims of un-intentional shootings in 1997, of whom 142 were below 15 years. Numerous mass shootings have also attained much media attention. For instance, a reporter and her cameraman, Alison Parker, and Adam Ward respectively were fatally shot while filming a live interview in 2015 by Vester Lee, a fellow reporter (John, 2015). The Charleston mass shooting in June also proves guns expose people to more violence, which leads to improper use such as suicide and mass killings.

Secondly, guns should be banned as they propel people to violence. In opposing the banning of gun ownership, most people ascertain that guns don’t kill people; people kill people, which is not wrong. However, ugly statistics like 31,000 deaths in U.S as compared to 35 in Britain where guns are banned suggest otherwise. Easy access to this armor causes all controversy. This is because almost everyone can own a gun in the country even with the slightest reasons. This means even the mentally disturbed people can easily attain guns and turn on people for fun. In fact, most people blame mass shootings on the mentally sick, which hides the fact that easy access to the weapons caused them to behave so brutally.

Thirdly, guns should be banned because more guns cannot stop gun violence. Sarcastically, the NRA ascertains that concealed handguns serve the purpose of reducing crimes by scarring or fighting off armed criminals. More research conducted showed that easy access to guns is directly related to increasing in violent crimes such as aggravated assault. As a perfect example, Australia banned all the citizens from owning guns after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where 35 people died and more injured by a single armed person with semiautomatic weapons. U.S should take a learning lesson from this and other mass shootings in the country to end all gun ownership laws so that no citizen possesses any firearms.

Objection

The main argument to the banning of gun ownership is that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. As such, the nation should focus on the people’s values and morals as well as the role of media in a glorious portrayal of a lack of respect for the law. Still, others opine that gun ownership laws are meant to protect the individual as local police forces can no longer assure the citizens of protection. While these arguments are true, it remains clear that gun ownership does more harm than good to the public.

In conclusion, the essay argues that gun ownership should be banned among all civilians as possessing guns do more harm than good. This is evident in the large sums of suicides and mass killings as at the hands of guns. Even if the government does not ban gun ownership, it should develop a more sophisticated system of screening that conducts extensive and universal background checks to every gun ownership applicant. Hopefully, this shall prevent the mentally ill, those with a criminal record, and those in search for revenge from executing more killings.

References

Fingerhut, S. and Cox et al., (1998) Comparative Analysis of Injury Mortality. Advance Data. Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics,

John, D. (2015). Ban Guns, End Shootings? How Evidence Stacks Up Around the World. Editioncnn