Gun Control in America (English Discursive Essay)

     Bonjour! I was very much enthusiastic to post this essay and my Nerdfighter essay for you to read as both are ones that I am reasonably proud of. Also to revive anyone who may have been so kind as to wait this long for another post from myself. Apart from the article I posted about Equal Marriage written by my good friend Elizaebth, this is the only serious article that I have posted on my blog. I am very much opinionated in a lot of things, especially moral issues that go on around the world and do enjoy expressing my views in debates.
     This Discursive Essay is part of my English coursework that makes up a percentage of my overall exam mark. I have very strong morals and though I don't normally identify myself as such, I am very much a pacifist. It is my belief that no one has the right to decide when someone dies to suit their own means and the issues that revolve around things such as gun ownership in America or the death penalty as an example that infuriates me. Of course we should respect other peoples views and not hate them based on a view they have, but I must admit I would find it very difficult if I were to encounter anyone strongly in favor of these unmoral acts.  Hopefully you will be able to find this an interesting read and that it may help anyone who is uncertain on the topic to form a more informed opinion. 

     

                                         Gun Control in America 

“By our readiness to allow our arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim...we have created an atmosphere of which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.”- Martin Luther King Jr 

     The use of guns is something I have never been able to justify as morally right. It is common knowledge that America has the highest gun ownership in the world, and yet Americans can't summon the sense to bring an end to this obsessive need to arm themselves In 2011, the number of guns related deaths in America reached nearly 33,000; can anyone in the right state of mind justify such needless deaths? It is my belief that there should be no debate over gun control, it should just be. 

     The banning of guns will save lives rather than giving people the easy means to kill. Such has been proven in Australia (1986), after 650,000 autonomic and semi-automatic guns were destroyed as well as controls and checks put into place, there was a 59% drop in gun related homicides in the first decade of the law. Mass shootings also fell from eleven a decade to zero. Some may argue that guns don't kill people, people kill people and they are technically right, but a person with a gun is going to kill many more people than someone without a gun. Putting gun control into place would also mean that the Government could focus on reducing other means of murder other than with guns. 

     Another argument for gun control, is that America already has an insane number of guns. 270 million guns are owned by civilians and only 897,000 are carried by police. Imagine how many lives are possibly in danger with so many weapons available to the general public? The frightening thing for people to come to terms with, is that this is more guns per capita than in countries such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. Any Latin American country such as Mexico or Columbia that are overrun with drug cartels and murder rates comparable to war zones have fewer gun ownerships. Even literal war zones such as Somalia have fewer people with guns. If you are more inclined to arm yourself than a failed nation with an average life expectancy of 50 years old then action must be taken to reduce this alarming result. 

     Furthermore, more guns offer more people the opportunity to commit suicide. In an article by the Boston Globe, they bring up the point that people may be under the assumption that someone killing themselves would require a lot of thought put into planning it, but study after study indicate that it is more of a spur on the moment thing than something that involves rational thinking. Therefore a lack of access to any form of guns could be the difference between life and death for some people. The “National Centre for Health Statistics” actually states that gun related suicides are the highest than all other methods combined. According to the same article, states in America with a high level of gun ownership have a suicide rate double that of a state with low gun ownership. Another fact to consider, is that anyone who has committed suicide is seventeen times likely to have a gun at home than to not have one. Despite the assumption made by people that gun owning states have mental health issues, research made by “Harvard Injury Control Research Centre” shows that this is false and despite them being as miserable as people in other states, they are still anywhere between two to ten times more likely to kill themselves. 

     On the other hand, one of the arguments posed against gun control is that apparently now is not the time to talk about guns. It is typical for the topic of guns to be brought up after a mass shooting, but at the time of the Netwon shooting, Press Secretary Jay Carney said we should just leave families to mourn. Of course respect should be given to anyone who has lost a loved one to a gun, but to fully understand the events of a shooting and understand if it could have been prevented, then there must be talk about guns. Sixty-two mass shooting have taken place between 1982-2012 and forty-nine of them were with legal weapons. How many more people have to die for guns to be banned? It sickens me when change only happen around the world when someone dies, and yet people in America are still so blindingly ignorant that they can't understand the lack of sense in guns being so accessible to the public. 

     To conclude, I believe Gun Control is the answer to decrease the number of gun related deaths in America. The use of guns have no moral ground and the innocent lives of other people will continue to be at risk until guns are taken away from civilians. If one mass shooting after the other does not make the American people see sense, then I worry as to what will. I can only hope Barak Obama will persist at reducing the availability of guns and in doing so, will hopefully insure the American people a safer society to live in: 

“We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.”- Mother Teresa

                                                     Geronimo!
                                                      Stephen.