Edward Valiente English 120 Professor Taylor 11/20/11 Gun Control The United States is the leader among nations in deaths caused by firearms. According to the Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV), the “gun epidemic” kills more than 30,000 and causes almost 70,000 injuries each year (para 7). Eventually, this leads to an uprising of gun control advocates, who seek to reduce crime and death rates by setting a variety of gun control legislation among the state and federal levels. Although, anti-gun control advocates believe that heavy restrictions on the access of firearms is unfair to American citizens, and a violation of the 2nd amendment in the U.S. constitution. However, evidence shows that a lower restriction on gun control ensures
Since 2008 Arizona cut 65 million from budget for mental health services. Had they not, would Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter, been able to receive mental health assistance and listed on the FBI data base as a potential threat to society? In 2009 Emily Friedman of ABC news reported that Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech Shooter, had seen or talked to the VT school counselor numerous times, been admitted into a physic ward in 2005. He was not listed on any data base to prevent him from purchasing guns in Wisconsin and in Virginia at a local pawn shop. These guns were used in the worse school massacres in the United States
In most violent crimes, guns are used. In the recent years, in spite of many measures taken by the law enforcement agencies, campus violence rate has gone up. The FBI, Secret Service and U.S Department of Education released the study, called “Campus Attacks,”1 on the third anniversary of the Virginia Tech Massacre. It is the first comprehensive look into “targeted violence” on college campuses. The study examined all reported incidents of “targeted violence” since 1900 and found that 60 percent of the 272 cases of college violence have occurred in the last 20 years.
When is it acceptable to use deadly force? Currently at least twenty of the fifty states in America have laws which grant individuals immunity from prosecution in deadly force cases when they can rationally claim self-defense. Commonly referred to as stand your ground laws, most of these states identify this “rational claim of self-defense” as acceptable when an individual is in fear of his/her life or the life of another. So how do we (society) determine if an individual who use deadly force in self-defense is truly in fear for their life? This issue is an extremely debatable topic in today’s media, given the shooting death of a 14 year old African-American boy, Trayvon Marton.
Researchers at Harvard studies the relationship between firearm availability and the deaths of children 5-14 years old. Out of that age group, 6,817 children were killed by firearms between 1988 and 1997. They also found out that death rates were highest in states where firearms were most accessible. Every so often a story will pop up on the news saying, “Kid shoots dad” or “Child accidentally shoots himself. Whats the easiest way to have stories like these stop popping up?
For instance, the government has banned certain types of guns from the country. Another gun control law makes a five day wait on the purchase of a handgun so a check can be run on the person’s history. Despite these laws the amount of felonious gun activity has not decreased. Many people are demanding that the government issue stricter gun control laws. One idea being considered is that gun manufacturers should be held responsible
The Dangers of Carrying a Gun In 1985, about 31,600 people were killed with guns, and perhaps another 130,000 people suffered nonfatal gunshot wounds. However, the majority of the deaths, 55%, were suicides, rather than criminal homicides. Only 37% were homicides, 5% were fatal gun accidents, and 1.5% each were due to legal intervention (police officers killing suspects in the line of duty) and to death where it was undetermined whether the injury was intentionally or accidentally inflicted. Moreover, among all deaths due to "external cause,"( i.e. accident, suicide or homicide) a gun was involved in 22% of them, handguns in about 13% of them.
In 2010, firearms accounted for 40% of teen suicides ("Childtrendsdatabank.org," 2013). Statistics shows that 19.3% of high school students, contemplated suicide and 14.5% made actual plans to commit suicide ("Teensuicidestatistics.com", 2012). This
This kind of violence allowed many questions to arise about what could have been done to avoid the shootings. “In 2004, the United States had about 30,000 gun-related deaths…” (Jost, K., 2007) Making school campuses safe is always a major focus for colleges, universities, and even schools that have children under 18. Some people felt that if more gun control laws had been implemented that thing like the Virginia Tech shooting would not have occurred. (Jost, K., 2007) The shooting was very unfortunate, and innocent people died for no reason. Gun control laws do help prevent this from happening as often.
When it comes to the law there is always an opinion, some are for it and some are against it, currently the legal drinking age is 21. Approximately 5,000 people each year under the age of 21 die as a result to underage drinking. 1,900 of these deaths occur from motor vehicle accidents. 1,600 occur as a result of a homicide. 300 deaths occur from suicide.