Pro-Gun Control and Citizens of the United States (Essay Sample)

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Pro-gun control
Introduction
Since independence, citizens of the United States had a right to bear firearms. The right is associated with constitutional provision ingrained in the Second Amendment. The founders believed that private ownership of guns was essential for protection of personal liberties. Therefore, for many decades, innocent citizens in the United States have suffered from illegal or immoral use of firearms. Thousands of gun-related crimes have been recorded in the United States. The situation causes many people to question the usefulness of the gun laws in the postmodern society.
Notably, when the founding fathers integrated the provision for citizens to assume private ownership of guns, the nation was facing many challenges, which included unreliable state. The founders wanted the citizens to protect themselves against unjust practices of the state. Besides, during that time, invasions from neighboring countries were rampant. The situation has changes in the contemporary society because of widespread civilization and globalization. Thus, there is need to eliminate the gun laws because they are outdated and widely misused.
Discussion
Gun control is an issue that has always been considered as controversial. The issue has sparked countless debates in public places. Ideally, it has successfully classified the United States citizens into two groups; one supporting gun control laws and the other rejecting the proposed laws. Whenever the subject of gun control emerges, passions instantaneously burst in one direction or the other. Despite the ongoing debate, the United States citizens are sure of one thing: they are tired of incidences of gun violence. One can rarely peruse the pages of newspapers without getting two or three gun violence incidences.
This year alone, the country has recorded 318 mass shooting incidences in various places. On 1st October 2015, a horrible incident of mass shooting occurred in the town of Roseburg, Oregon. The event marked the 47th school shooting in the country in the year 2015 alone. Since the reelection of President Obama in 2012, the nation has recorded approximately 1,000 incidences of mass shooting. While presenting a statement on the latest school shooting in Oregon, the president confessed that the incidences have become a routine.
The gun-related crimes in the United States are attributed to the high rates of gun ownership. Statistics shows that the country has approximately 88 guns per 100 people, which translates to 270,000,000 guns (Esposito 74). The gun ownership rate is the highest in the world regarding per capita number and the total number. Studies also show that 22% of the American citizens own one or more guns. The high rate of gun possession is linked for deaths of thousands of people every year. According to the FBI, between the years 2007 and 2011, 46,313 Americans died due to gun violence. The trend translates to approximately 9,263 murders per annum or 25 murders on a daily basis.
Recent statistics indicates that almost 31 Americans die every day because of gun violence while close to 151 seek emergency treatments in hospitals (Henderson 32). Additionally, it is thought that every day, 55 Americans commit suicide using their guns while 46 are accidentally killed with guns. Shockingly, the homicide rate in the United States is 20 times higher as compared to the accumulated rates of 22 countries that enjoy the same ranks in wealth and population. In the country, a home-owned gun is 22 times more probable to be used to injure or kill in a domestic homicide, commit suicide, or perform an unintentional shooting than used for self-defense (Esposito 82).
The existence of gun laws in the United States is one of the greatest inhibiting factors to economic, social, and political success. It is one of the principal contributors of psychological challenges among the youth. Studies show that more than one in every five American teenagers has witnessed a shooting. Such incidences are terrifying and traumatizing. The victim may never fully recover, especially if there is lack of timely, professional intervention. The rampant incidences of gun violence in the country play a leading role in the erosion of societal morals. If the trend is allowed to continue, and then the country is most likely to experience a future where youngsters and adults find it normal for one to kill or be killed.
From the economic perspective, the country is losing greatly. To begin with, gun violence leads to waste of societal resources because the treatments, loss of working days, incapacities, and death deny the economy a chance to operate at optimum levels. Gun violence forces the country to divert vital resources to situations that were not pre-planned. It is approximated that new security precautions, criminal justice proceedings, reduction of quality of life, and medical treatments cost the nation $100 billion annually. The lifetime medical costs attached to all the gun violence victims reach $2.3 billion (Esposito 91). Almost half of the amount is borne by the taxpayers. The information reveals that gun laws opened a window for waste of public resources.
Gun laws also paved the way for loss of active human resources that could be used to advance the economic and social agenda. Among the young people aged between 1 and 19, firearm homicide is known to be the second-foremost grounds of death after motor vehicle crashes. It is thought that guns in the United States kill more schoolchildren than police officers. The trend is saddening because it robs the country of its active human resources. Firearm homicides targeting the youth are a great loss because the country invests heavily in training its youngsters. Apart from losing its active human resources, the gun violence incidences have broken many families, especially in situations where breadwinners were the victims. In most cases, the remaining family members suffer greatly from psychological, social, medical, financial problems. Many of the suicide incidences are associated with frustrations following loss of friends or loved ones through gun violence incidences.
There is need to adopt more stringent laws to curb gun ownership in the United States. Statistics shows that nine in every ten Americans believe that a universal background check should be enforced to avoid situations where criminals own guns. When the Brady Law was introduced, it assisted in introducing restrictions on gun ownership. When the law was implemented, almost 2 million attempts to purchase guns were restricted because of the background check provision. The background check assisted by denying felons a chance to own guns and pursue evil activities. Despite the introduction of the Brady Law, the trend of gun ownership did not reduce. The law failed to achieve its desired function because of technological innovations. The background check was only applicable to approximately 60% of the gun sales in the country. The law failed to cover 40% of gun sales that take place on online platforms, gun shows, and other areas where the concept of background checks is not embraced (Henderson 71). Thus, the Brady Law does not in preventing guns from falling into the hands of bad people. There is need to formulate a workable gun control law because many criminals easily purchase guns using legal means and use them to commit crimes. Although the mandatory waiting period and background checks have helped to deter criminals, it did not seal all the potential loopholes.
The concept of gun ownership needs to be reevaluated. Notably, when the founding fathers first introduced the concept, it was not meant to be used for protecting oneself from other citizens. It was meant to protect the citizens from immoral activities of the state. Furthermore, it is vital to note that public rights supersede the private rights (Roleff 198). Although gun ownership assists in maintaining private liberties, it also endangers the lives of thousands of people, leading to a breach of public rights.
Today, the clause in the Second Amendment that paved the way for the adoption of gun ownership is outdated because the government has faithfully protected and defended its citizens for centuries. Besides, in the postmodern society, owning guns is not a key to safeguarding democracy. Democracy is upheld by having informed citizens that know and exercise their rights in a manner that does not breach the interests of others.
The country needs to embrace chance so that it can avert a looming crisis that has already been proven via rising cases of homicides. The current laws that were created to control gun ownership are ineffective. For instance, the Brady Laws failed to control gun ownership by criminals. The gun registration laws are also inadequate for law enforcement. Preventing and solving criminal activities can be done by proper registration and characterization of guns. If reasonable standards are adopted, then criminals will be easily handled. For instance, the gun ownership laws allow citizens to own semi-automatic weapons (Esposito 100). Citizens are not supposed to own such weapons because they are designed for military operations. Such weapons have been used in the recent past to advance mass murders through shootings. The existing laws need to be reevaluated to protect innocent citizens from criminals, accidents, and people with mental challenges.
It has been noted that violent gun crimes rise when more people are allowed to own guns. Since the early 1990s, the right to own and carry guns has been widely implemented. Consequently, gun violence has steadily risen since that time. In most cases, people imagine that gun violence occurs when criminals acquire guns. However, studies have shown that three-quarters...