“Miles Turner V was around the corner from his home on Chicago's South Side, talking with a girl on her porch, when his cousin [Modell McCambry] came by. Unlike Miles, who took no interest in street life, Modell McCambry, 17, was a gang "wannabe," according to Miles' father. A gunman stepped out of the gangway and shot Modell. As Miles bent over to embrace his mortally wounded cousin, he was shot in the back, his parents said. The assailant has not been caught. Miles was so gravely wounded that after one surgery, doctors told his father the youth's intestines fell through their hands when they picked them up. He remained in a medically induced coma for weeks. Around Christmas, Miles was moved to a specialty wound center, and then to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago before going home in May. Teachers from Leo Catholic High School tutored him so he could keep up with his education, and he graduated June 2. Miles was an athlete before the incident, so getting used to his wheelchair and catheter was difficult, needing his parents to get up extra early to help him get dressed and washed before they go to work. During Miles’ treatments he was sometimes withdrawn instead of his normal sociable self, his mother Angela Turner said, who ´recalled sitting at his bedside and telling him: ‘It's unfortunate that this happened to you but He spared your life, so it's not the end. It's just something we have to deal with right now.´”
This anecdote is about a teenager named Miles V Turner who was shot in the back by a gunman who was targeting his cousin. He was severely disabled physically and emotionally scarred because of the wound, having to spend weeks in hospitals and medical centers before he was able to go home, and then having to go through treatment with a wheelchair and a catheter. If people with negative backgrounds were denied guns, the gunman who shot Miles and killed his cousin would’ve never been able to access the gun that caused such misery by disabling and killing Miles and his cousin, along with the many other people and their families that have been harmed or killed because of the unstable people that should have been denied ownership of such a destructive weapon. The government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license because guns have done more harm than good, because incidents such as this one could’ve never happened. Guns can only harm, especially when owned by criminals and have harmed more people than any other weapon in the last half-century.
One reason why the government should only let people with a license purchase and own guns is because criminals with guns can be very dangerous. In an article from The New York Times called “Some Inconvenient Gun Facts for Liberals”, the author Nicholas Kristof talks about facts that go against liberals in favor for gun control. From the text, “Research suggests that the most important practical step would be to keep guns away from high-risk individuals, such as criminals, those who abuse alcohol, or those who beat up their domestic partners. That means universal background checks before somebody acquires a gun. New Harvard research confirms a long-ago finding that 40 percent of firearms in the United States are acquired without a background check. That’s crazy. Why empower criminals to arm themselves? Some evidence supports steps that seem common sense. More than 10 percent of murders in the United States, for example, are by intimate partners. The riskiest moment is often after a violent breakup when a woman has won a restraining order against her ex. Prohibiting the subjects of those restraining orders from possessing a gun reduces these murders by 10 percent, one study found. If you can keep a gun from someone at that moment of threat, that is very important,” notes Daniel W. Webster, a gun safety expert at Johns Hopkins University who has pioneered research on keeping guns from high-risk individuals.”
(Kristof 1) In an article from The New York Times called “Keep Guns Away From Abusers”, the Editorial Board (of The New York Times) talks about how abusers use guns and why guns should be kept away from them. The Editorial Board writes, “While a background check should prevent anyone prohibited from purchasing a firearm from doing so, federal law does not require private sellers to perform background checks. The results can be deadly: In 2012, a Wisconsin man subject to a domestic violence restraining order purchased a gun from a seller on the website ArmsList.com and used it to kill his wife, two other women and himself. In her request for the restraining order, his wife had written, “His threats terrorize my every waking moment.””
(Editorial Board 1) These pieces of evidence demonstrate why people should not be given guns without background checks because of the danger it puts others in if you don't know the background and intentions of the person you're handing a gun to. This is important to know because if it were to continue, thousands of unstable, abusive, criminal (etc.) would have access to these dangerous firearms.
Another reason why the government should only let people with a license purchase and own guns is because restrictions on gun ownership can many lives. In an article from the website Slate called “How Many Shootings Will It Take for America to Control Its Guns?”, the author Will Oremus talks about how Australia has benefited from its gun control laws and what is left to be changed. The text says, “What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.”
(Oremus 1) In an article from CNN (Cable News Network) called “'American Sniper' widow: Gun control won't protect us”, the author Taya Kyle talks about how guns aren’t the only deadly weapon, meaning that gun con control alone won’t protect us. From the text, “Our fears, though, have gone up, because of the high-profile incidents of mass killings of people caught unaware. Killers have taken lives in churches, schools, hospitals, government buildings, the site of a marathon, the Twin Towers and even a part of a military base where soldiers were known to be unarmed.” (Kyle 2)These pieces of evidence demonstrate how gun control laws are beneficial but don’t cover everything because of how Australia has benefited. This is important because if America were to do the same as Australia, gun related dangers and threats would diminish and decrease.
Another reason why the government should only let people with a license purchase and own guns is because more people have been killed by guns than any other weapon in the last half-century. In an article from the website PunditFact called “More Americans killed by guns since 1968 than in all U.S. wars”, the author Louis Jacobson talks about how many people have died from guns compared to every other weapon in the last 48 years. As the text says, “So the statistic still holds up: There have been 1,516,863 gun-related deaths since 1968, compared to 1,396,733 cumulative war deaths since the American Revolution. That’s 120,130 more gun deaths than war deaths -- about 9 percent more, or nearly four typical year's worth of gun deaths. And that’s using the most generous scholarly estimate of Civil War deaths, the biggest component of American war deaths.”
(Jacobson 2) In an article from the website Punditfact (Politifact) called “More Americans killed by guns since 1968 than in all U.S. wars, columnist Nicholas Kristof writes”, the author Louis Jacobson talks about how many people died from guns alone in wars since 1968. Jacobson writes,
“Here’s a summary of deaths by major conflict:
War Deaths:
| |
(Jacobson 3). These pieces of evidence demonstrate how guns have been used in war alone. This is important to know about because if you know how guns have been used in war, you can see how destructive they can be outside of battle.
While it’s clear that the government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license, because guns have done more harm than good, some might say that gun restriction laws won’t protect us because guns aren't the only warm to harm others. For instance, Taya Kyle insists, “Does it matter what weapon they used? If it was a rifle, a pipe bomb, a truck of fertilizer, a pressure cooker or a plane -- the end result is the same. Yet millions of other people have the freedom to have those very same things and will never use them to kill.” (Kyle, 2), saying that the danger is more of the killer not the weapon. Even though this is true, this does nothing to prove that the government should NOT make it illegal to own a gun without a license (because guns have done more harm than good) because it's talking about restrictions on other weapons, not what is being focused on in this essay. For this reason, the government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license because guns have done more harm than good.
And even while it's clear that the government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license, because guns have done more harm than good, some might say that without guns, people would be defenseless because guns can be used defensively. For example, Gary DeMar argues that, ¨If people want to kill other people, the law’s not going to stop them. Box cutters and airplanes brought down the Twin Towers. If word got out that ten to twenty percent of the population was carrying a firearm, I suspect that nut jobs and world-be terrorists would have second thoughts about going on shooting rampages. We might, however, see an up-tick in other types of killings.¨
(DeMar 1) he means that killers don't pay attention to the law, so laws wouldn't stop them from killing. However, this is ridiculous reasoning. While it's true that guns can be used as defense or intimidation doesn't mean it can only be used as defense or intimidation because they're more commonly used as a weapon for offence rather than defense. And because of this, the government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license because guns have done more harm than good.
The government should make it illegal to own a gun without a license because guns have done more harm than good, and there are many reasons why this should be so. Criminals with guns can be very dangerous, restrictions on gun ownership can many lives, and more people have been killed by guns than any other weapon in the last half-century. Guns have been taking the lives of humans ever since it was first created. And ever since then, they have been used with beneficial intentions, but also with disagreeable intentions, used to harm or even kill fellow humans. But this has to stop. The time to use deadly weapons abusively is over, and those with reason should understand that if we put restrictions on the use and purchasing of guns, the amount of people who die from guns each year shall decrease. America would become a better country because of it, improving our reputation among other countries and to our citizens.
No comments:
Post a Comment