As we watch the events that unfolded on Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, people are thinking, who can do such a terrible thing?
In Columbine, nobody knows why the two students decided to go on a shooting rampage. Some experts say that other students treated the shooters poorly before the shooting, some say they were influence by music or video games, and others say they were mentally unstable.
In Virginia Tech, the signal shooter was mentally unstable. Recently, there was a gunmen in St. John's University, who was also mentally unstable. Luckily he got caught before he could do series damage.
You can't blame the schools for allowing people who are mentally unstable from attending school. Nobody knows who is mentally stable or unstable. The problem is how did these people get the guns?
The students in Columbine had automatic rifles, and carried a whole arsenal with them. They bought there guns in a local Kmart. Getting a gun at Columbine can be so easy that even a high school student is able to buy their weapons there. This means that almost any body can get a gun. It can be criminals, students who are plotting to go in a shooting rampage, or people who buy guns where it is easy to get and sell it illegally in places that bans certain guns.
In order to stop gun violence and school shootings, we should pass strict gun laws, but not get rid of guns all together. Only certain people should be allowed to have a gun. Politicians, farmers, hunters, store owners, and police officers should have the right to own a gun. A regular or average person should not be allowed to have a gun.
Guns have caused many deaths in the U.S. Many deaths are intentionally, and some are unintentional. When it comes to killing people, guns is the primary weapon used to conduct the killing. Guns also make the police jobs harder. A lot of officers died because the suspects are able to get a hold of a gun and shoot the officers, who are trying to make a living to support their family. Finally, there is the "freak accidents". Some people buy a gun for home protection, so they store the gun some place safe in their house. Instead keeping their kids safe from home invaders, one of the kids can get a hold of the gun, and end up accidentally killing others or themselves.
Many people would argue that a gun could be used for home protection. A gun will not stop a someone from breaking into someones home. Many times when someone break into no one is in the house. The robbers are smart enough to wait until it is clear and not take a chance.
Others would say that they have the right to own a gun, the second amendment allows them to. The second amendment was written a long time ago, when the government was just being form. People had the right to own a gun, in case the government got too powerful and the people can revolt. Also back then there is a state militia, and members of the militia has to have a gun. Today the government is stable and the state militia no longer exist. If we don't like what the government is doing, we could always hold rallies, protest or worse case scenario riots.
Finally, the NRA would say "guns don't kill people, people kill people". This statement has some truth in it, but it is not entirely true. People do kill other people ,but what they use to kill other people is a gun. If someone wanted to kill someone else and a gun is not available, killing that person would be a lot harder. The person will have a better chance of defending himself. Also a gun does kill people. A malfunction with the gun can kill someone. For example: if I am cleaning my gun and drop it, the gun can discharge a bullet, and kill either myself or someone else who is standing at the wrong place at the wrong time.
By making stricter gun laws can really help reduce gun related deaths. Incidents such as Columbine or Virgina Tech could have been prevented if guns were harder to get. In order for this to work, strict gun laws should be passed, not just for one local city, but for every city in every state.
1 comment:
Andrew ~ May I suggest that you do a tad more research into why American citizens want, need and should be allowed to protect themselves with weapons. How many times have the police stopped a “home invasion” in the USA, the number is close to zero? How often have the police stopped any numbers of murders, rapes and robberies that happen every day in this country? . . . The number is VERY FEW! They just can’t be everywhere and the perpetrators of these violent crimes know this all too well.
This is why people have to protect themselves from harm. What good is it if the police arrive only after a neighbor calls to state that there’s a terrible odor coming from the house next door, only to find out the occupants were murdered a week earlier.
Please Andrew, put yourself in the place of some of these people of violent crime…don’t you think they wished they had something that would stop them from becoming just another victim of violent crime?
Below is an article about states changing laws so people CAN protect themselves.
All the best,
Ron
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States allow deadly self-defense
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
A year after Florida became the first state to allow citizens to use deadly force against muggers, carjackers and other attackers, the idea is spreading. South Dakota has enacted a similar law, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels plans to sign such a measure today, and 15 other states are considering such proposals.
Dubbed "Stand Your Ground" bills by supporters such as the National Rifle Association, the measures generally grant immunity from prosecution and lawsuits to those who use deadly force to combat any unlawful entry or attack. Several states allow people to use deadly force in their homes against intruders; the new measures represent an expansion of self-defense rights to crimes committed in public.
The NRA and other supporters say the bills are needed in many states that require people under attack in public places to withdraw from the situation, rather than retaliate, unless they can show their lives are in danger. "For someone attacked by criminals to be victimized a second time by a second-guessing legal system is wrong," the NRA's Wayne LaPierre says.
Critics, including the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, say the bills encourage vigilantism and would make it more likely that confrontations would turn deadly. Zach Ragbourn of the Brady group says the proposals "are more accurately called 'Shoot First' laws. They allow a person who just feels something bad is going to happen to open fire in public."
The idea that people should use deadly force only to defend their lives is rooted in English common law, author Richard Maxwell Brown says in No Duty To Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society. Another common law principle, the "duty to retreat," requires people to avoid potentially deadly confrontations. The principles apply in most states. The duty to retreat generally doesn't apply in a person's home.
LaPierre says the NRA is targeting 29 duty-to-retreat states where people can be prosecuted, sued or both if they don't retreat from criminal attacks.
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