Debunking Myths: The Gun Show Loophole

Just Another Perspective

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about gun control. In fact it is one of the most hotly debated topics in our society today, but one thing that most people can agree on is background check for the purchase of firearms. But there are a lot of hurdles for a background check system, a lot of things to consider and a lot of problem with how it is set up today. Another battleground for the debate surrounding the misguidedly named “Gun Show Loophole.”

The Gun Show loophole is talked about a lot in the media lately. They say that anyone can walk into a gunshow and buy some large scary “assault rifle.” This is extremely misleading. First off, assault rifles have been illegal in the United States since May 1986 with the

It sounds like a good idea to keep guns out of the hands of those that are mentally ill, in fact most American would agree to that. Most people fail to see the major problems with this. The most prominent problem is what would be considered a mental illness. Around 1 in 4 people in the United States have a diagnosable mental illness(mentalivs). Where is the line drawn? A law cannot be passed that blocks a quarter of the population from getting guns. So if they restricted people that had what is considered a serious mental illness it would only stop about six percent of the population from getting guns. This is better, but the problem still is that most people that have a mental illness are not violent and do not pose any more harm than the average person(gun-mental). Another question that arises when trying to stop mentally ill people from getting guns is how would the government know that a person was mentally fit for a gun. Would they get the medical records of the person? Would they have to take some type of test? If they assessed people's medical records that would pose a massive privacy issue. It would be like throwing doctor patient confidentiality out the window. Privacy these days seems to be disappearing, so we should hold on to it when we still have it. If they were to have a test or some form of evaluation someone could easily pass a test or fool a doctor by not being