Should the government restrict access to assault weapons? This question has gotten many Americans thinking and has the nation divided. The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 banned large capacity magazines and assault weapons. Then in 2004 the ban was lifted and never renewed. Now Americans are wondering if it should be renewed after many mass shootings like in Newtown, Connecticut. Also, gun supporters argue that it would Infringe on the Second Amendment. Then, should Large capacity magazines be banned? This topic is a big controversy. Supporters say that it should be limited to 10 rounds. Gun advocates say a ban would do nothing to prevent deaths. Finally, what are legitimate reasons uses for assault weapons? Pro-gun supporters say they are used …show more content…
(Why gun groups). Keith Morgan said that “Examining the tool and attempting to ban the tool will have absolutely no effect.” (Why gun groups). He also said that to solve the problem we need to find a people solution. (why gun groups). In a report on weapons used in homicides by the FBI in 2013, more people die by handguns than any other type of gun, 5,782 people died by handguns compared to 285 by rifles, 308 by shotguns, and 123 by other weapons. Knives or cutting instruments 1,490 people died. Blunt objects, like clubs and hammers, there were 428 deaths. In the personal weapon category (hands, fists, feet, etc.) 687 people died. Also 11 people died from poison and 2 people died from explosives (FBI). This shows that assault weapons are not the …show more content…
“To gun control advocates, the numbers show for much stricter laws”. (Rhee). Gun control advocates also say that assault weapons should only be used by police and military and absolutely need to be out of the hands of criminals and mentally unstable people. (Rhee). In a study on gun crimes involving assault weapons during the federal ban found that the crime declined between 17 and 72 percent in the selected six cities, Anchorage, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Milwaukee and St. Louis, but they found no decline in crimes committed with other guns. (Fallis). Now that the federal ban is no longer in place, seven states and a handful of municipalities have banned assault weapons. Their impact has been has been slight because of many reasons. It is very difficult to control weapons across state lines. Since most states do not ban assault weapons, one can go buy an assault weapon in another state. Also, most states allow grand fathering of guns, which means one person may keep their gun if they already have one and can pass it down to a family member or give it away. Some states like New York, for example, you cannot sell your gun or give it away.
Should the government outlaw handguns? This has been a controversial point for many years. There are those who argue: yes handguns should be banned because it gives guns to the criminal, its dangerous in households and the Second Amendment was intended for militia. However, others argue that handguns should not be banned because they are in the second amendment, for self protection, and for the fact that they are already restricted so that not just anybody can own a handgun. Handguns should not be restricted because they are a right in the second amendment, they offer self protection and crime deterrent and that there are already restrictions put in place to control guns, and finally there are a couple of examples where handgun bans have not been effective.
The myth is that most Americans believe that a gun ban will protect their families and loved one from violence and other forms of danger but in actuality, most Americans are pro second amendment understanding a gun ban has the reverse effect. What gun ban advocates do not regularly acknowledge is that more restrictive gun laws do not incentivize criminals to give up their guns. Chicago & Washington are prime examples of highly restrictive gun zones with skyrocketing crime. The law abiding citizen is defenseless against a criminal who disregards the law. This issue is not only domestic; UK burglary, assault, and other crime are increasing with & without guns. A criminal who wants to commit a crime will commit a crime with whatever he can legally or illegally get his hands on. When a crime is committed with a knife, the media does not call it “knife crime”. That’s because in a court of law, each is held accountable for their actions, not the object. Why are guns any different? This is because there is a misunderstanding about guns, violence & the correlation. There are a plethora of attempted crimes not reported because of a second amendment wielding law abiding citizen protected themselves and deterred the would be criminal. Statistics are not usually discussed about the positive stories of the feared tool deterring violence on a daily basis. The solution to fluctuating violence is not a simple answer. Rampant, out of control government spending leads to inflation, while expensive over legislation drains and weakens the economy which causes weaker purchasing power and increa...
There are many views about gun control especially when referring to assault weapons. People are both for it and against it. When first hearing “Assault Weapon Man”, many different images filter through one’s mind on what an assault weapon looks like and how to differentiate between an assault weapon and a regular handgun. There is still no consistent definition for an assault weapon. The only definitions that are out there are the ones found in laws, which are used to classify an assault weapon. Even those definitions are not consistent because they are changed and improved when new laws are proposed. Assault weapons are a class of semi-automatic firearms that are designed to kill humans quickly and efficiently. According to the 1994 Crime Control Act an assault weapon is defined as any “semi-automatic rifle that can accept a detachable magazine and has two or more of the following: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or threads to attach, or a grenade launcher (Assault Weapons, 2010). Assault weapon bans infuriate many because they feel as if the ban is unconstitutional and going against the 2nd amendment while others believe that the banning of such assault weapons will decrease the number of deaths occurring by an assault weapon.
Gun violence has been and continues to be one of the major problems in American. The U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world and consequently the highest rate of gun violence and fatalities compared to other developed countries. In a study by the University of Sydney it is estimated that there are 270,000,000 to 310,000,000 guns in the United States. According to the same study in 2010 there were 31,672 fatalities caused by firearms and on the following year the number went up to 32,163. Homicides resulting from guns are high in the United States and they are claiming more than eleven thousand lives every year (Guns in the United States: Firearms, Armed Violence and Gun Law). According to Vision for Humanity, an initiative for the Economics and Peace, the United States is ranked 99 out of 162 countries in the 2013 global peace index, homicide rates and violent crimes are among the various criteria used to determine the ranking (Vision of Humanity). Mass shootings at work places, schools, shopping malls and places of worship are happening in an a...
They say more murders will be committed, but the gun rate is the highest it has ever been in 1991 and since then in 2012 murder rate has decreased to 49%, a 52% drop(Ten Reasons Why States Should Reject “Assault Rifle” and “Large” Magazine Bans). Statistics say that even though bans are put in place to reduce crime it doesn’t. In another article it states that California banned assault rifles in 1989 and the murder rate increased every year and over the course of five years it increased 26%. Two-thirds of the murders today committed with firearms, but of those two-thirds, 69% are committed with handguns not rifles(Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Is Not the Answer).
The first point that I want to bring is that between 1991 and 2015 that assault weapons didn’t have any major effect on the murder rate of the at the state level and the state that restrictions on the carrying of a concealed weapon having a bigger gun related murders. Not all murders happen because people want to do a crime most of them are in self-defense. “During the same year, 72.9% of homicides were firearm homicides and, of these, approximately 90% were committed with a handgun” (Siegel). The way people are told about this is way through media portraying it in any way that they want not giving the people the whole story.
More and more frequently, we are saddened by the news of mass shootings. Whether it takes place in a school or public area, these shootings are both disastrous and mortifying. Families begin to feel anger and sadness, and demand immediate justice. Although these terrible events continue to happen, there have been no significant steps taken towards the reduction in the number of weapons; specifically assault rifles. This leads one to question do we need to ban the right to possess such weapons? If the possession of these weapons is not made illegal, we run the risk of another attack. While there is no questioning the severity of these mass shootings, a ban on assault rifles is not the answer because they are not the cause of such events, and it is a constitutional right to own them.
This is a sensitive matter because people believe that we should not own assault rifles but others think the second amendment protects them. They had different weapons back then. People get confused and think AR means assault rifle but it actually means Arma lite. Some people think civilians have no right to guns like AR’s and M16’s but if it is modified for hunting I think we should allow people to have them. People act different when they want something so like the Vegas shooter gone to the gun shop and acted normal but he was a drunk and had 32,000$ in medical debt. He was a millionaire and just won 40,000$ but I think the fact that he fell at the hotel, he hit his head was not right since. There are no gun laws in Nevada and after this
Over the past year, the United States has been plagued with controversy in regards to gun control legislation. On January 24, 2013, Senator Feinstein introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013. The Assault Weapons Ban was a bill written to stop the acts of sale, transfer, importation, and manufacturing of military styled weapons. The NRA-ILA website quotes an excerpt of Feinstein’s bill, which states, “Feinstein’s new bill are as follows: Reduces, from two to one, the number of permitted external features on various firearms. The 1994 ban permitted various firearms to be manufactured only if they were assembled with no more than one feature listed in the law. Feinstein’s new bill would prohibit the manufacture of the same firearms with even one of the features.” (NRA-ILA) Wayne Lapierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, said in 2009, “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the guns you want to ban and you don’t want to ban. You’re going to ban these semi-autos, and then it’s going to be handguns, and then it’s going to be pump shotguns.” Lapierre’s statement supports the fact that the recent gun ban legislation across the United States will not solve the problem of increased violence.
In the modern era, gun violence seems very common when one opens a newspaper or watches the news on the television. I’m some of the acts of violence, guns were used and some of the weapons listed by the media that look like military weapons are named “assault weapons” or “assault rifle”. As time goes on, more weapons like these keep appearing in the news, assisting criminals with their terrible crimes. As a result, the debate on banning assault rifles has risen. The situations where these types of weapons are being used by animals are a perfect reason why assault rifle should not be banned.
Why would people stop someone from defending themselves in a dangerous situation where it can be life-threatening? Any type of weapon should not be banned because if something goes wrong people should be able to defend they. If a robber comes in someones house people are able to shoot or protect they from danger. It is important to be able to carry a weapon if they feel defenseless or easy to pick on. A woman was getting robbed while the dad of her baby was out for the moment so she was fearful of her baby being taken. The woman had a shotgun and asked the police if it was okay to shoot him and they said if he enters they dwelling they are able, by law to shoot him. Assault weapons should not be banned.
The problem with guns is fairly obvious: they decrease the difficulty of killing or injuring a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994), he points out the obvious dangers. About 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. Firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985, the cost of shootings was an estimated $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed.
There are several cities that have employed handgun bans in the past, and the results were not promising. On September 24, 1976, Washington, D.C. placed a ban on all handguns; the ban was later overturned on June 26, 2008. Under the regulations of this law, no one other than a police officer was permitted to own a handgun. Authors Agresti and Smith (2010) state that “during the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law were in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.” Clearly, banning handguns in D.C. did not reduce the amount of murders and crimes that were committed, and the number of murders actually increased drastically. Gun control supporters would argue this information by saying that the statistics are misleading , and that it is necessary to consider other factors such as the changing of times as well as the rise of drug and gang violence. They may have a point, but as Washington, D.C.’s murder rate increased by 73%, the rest of the United States as a whole experienced an 11% decrease in murders (Agresti & Smith, 2010). This is difficult for them to explain. A second illustration of the ineffectiveness of banning handguns is that of Chicago, Illinois. In 1982, Chicago passed a ban on all
The main thing that differentiated the banned weapons was their appearance. As many predicted, a legislatively mandated post-AWB study found that the ban had no discernible effect on crime rates. Having a gun is a sacrifice of the constitutional rights of Americans for the problems of another nation. There was a school shooting in Colombian High School where assault weapons were fired until the school was literally littered with bodies—a dozen students and a teacher murdered, more than two dozen others injured. My personal appeal is that assault weapons should not be banned,for self defense and our 12th amendment because if you get robbed with no one with you then you should have the right pull out your gun and kill the person for self defense. People are always going to have some people who are prone to grievance killing. It is my belief the assault weapon, the military-style semiautomatic assault weapon, has become the weapon of choice for grievance killers. Some people disagree with others saying that the government should ban Assault Weapons because they are too powerful and dangerous for kids under 21. The government
Works Cited Page http://www.i2i.org/S./Assault_Weapon_Ban_Wouldn’t_Have_Stopped_Texas_Massacre.ht Assault weapons’ ban wouldn’t have stopped Texas massacre, David Kopel, Assault Weapons.com. http://www.funsupply.com/political/carry.html concealed carry http://www.jointogether.org/gv/issues/response/laws/strlaws2.jtml Gun Violence - the Issues - The Response - Stronger Gun Laws http://infosys.jhsph.edu/centers/gunpolicy/ Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research http://infosys.jhsph.edu/center/gunpolicy/factsheets.cfm Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research http://www.health.su.oz.au/cgc/websum.htm Claims that Right-to-Carry Laws http://www.joycefdn.org/programs/gunviolence/gunintro.html The Joyce Foundation: About Our Gun Violence Programs http://members.zdial.com/tysk/Depts/2nd_Amend/gun_facts.htm Thought You Should Know - Gun Facts