Firearms in American Society
Imagine this; a man goes shooting with two youths in the woods three times within a month. He decides they are good guys and chooses to sell them a semiautomatic TEC DC-9. Using the same gun, the two youths attack their own fellow students at school and ultimately take their own lives. This couldn’t happen in America right? Wrong! This particular scenario is not hypothetical, but actually occurred in a now infamous town named Littleton, Colorado. The availability of weaponry and the violence caused by guns in society today should cause the United States of America to create stricter gun control regulations. One of the major reasons that American society needs stricter gun control is that guns are present in many crimes. According to the U.S. Census of 2000, 64.9% of all homicide victims were murdered with firearms (United States 8). Guns are not limited to murders either. According to Constance Crooker, “During the 1990’s criminals used guns during aggravated assaults more than 164,000 times per year … and during robberies more than 181,000 times per year” (1). The effects of these crimes are not only felt by the victims, but by everyone in society causing an increase of fear in A
The facts do not lie about the availability of guns in American society. There also is no doubt that crime is increased by the enormous presence of guns in America. Therefore, the gun control laws in the U.S. today are outdated and must be addressed. Stricter gun control laws would help our “civilized” nation become a great deal more civil and help more of our children live to be adults rather than end up six feet under. The ease of obtaining a gun legally may be disturbing, but what is even worse is the fact that obtaining a gun illegally is almost as easy. Many people with criminal backgrounds obtain guns illegally through theft. According to James Jacobs, “An estimated 500,000 to 1.4 million firearms are stolen annually” (102). Under current regulations, many times a convicted criminal will have a straw purchaser, someone who buys a gun for someone else, purchase a firearm for them. “In just three years (1996-1998), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms traced 1421 homicide guns to 140 dealers. Seven of eight crimes guns bought from these gun dealers changed hands before being used in a crime” (Jacobs 105). These stats show that 87.4% of those guns
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Approximate Word count = 801
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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