Gun shooting incidences and stricter laws in the US
Gun control is any legal framework intended to restrict or prevent the possession, and use of firearms. The gun control laws in the United States are getting looser every year regarding who owns the guns whether licensed or not. The topic of gun control has elicited debates across the states in the US following the rampant cases of unprecedented public mass shootings. There are existing federal gun laws that regulate gun ownership. Besides, each state in the US has its own set of laws that regulate the firearms. The second amendment to the constitution of the US provides the right to keep, and bear firearms. The second amendment makes gun control in the US to be one of the most divisive issues in the current American society. In close to 60 percent of the states in America, victims have been killed indiscriminately making the gun control argument antagonistic. The mass shootings in the US do not spare children either. According to the statement released by the BBC News correspondent on December 12th, 2018, the year was the worst year for US school shootings. Over 113 people have been injured or killed in school shootings in the United States. Since the 1970s, the shootings in 2018 marked the highest number of such incidences ever recorded. The government, and the states in the US must adopt stricter laws for gun control to prevent more unprecedented mass shootings and killings.
Gun shooting incidences and stricter laws in the US
Strict guns control laws will guard against who buys, and owns the guns. The government of the United States needs to revisit the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). This at regulated the firearms at the federal level, what today doesn’t seem to work for most states in the US. According to the GCA, shotguns or riffles could only be purchased by citizens over 18 years of age. The other firearms such as the handguns can only be sold to people 21 years and older (Duigan, 2018). For close to a decade now, the US has experienced several breaches in the GCA. According to the statistics retrieved from the Gun Violence Archives (GVA), youths as young as 16 years are in gun possessions. Most of these children get access to these firearms from home, thus calling for stricter laws of gun possession (Andrés & Hempstead, 2011). Such children may develop the interest of operating the firearms when in the real sense, some of may not know their use. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
According to the Small Arms Survey of 2011, about 114,996 people were shot on an estimate in each of the previous years in the US (Mehalko, 2012). The numbers were cumulative of the murders, assaults, suicide attempts, police intervention, and accidents. On the part of the accidents, the statistics further revealed that youths aged between 15 and 17 years committed most guns accidents at their homes (Andrés & Hempstead, 2011). The statistics raised the question: who is really in possession of the guns? The answers to this question rely on the ability of the government to pass stricter gun laws. The Santa Fe High school shootings in Texas were carried out by teenage boys. In this incident alone, ten students were reportedly killed.
The strict laws will allow the government of the US to carry out gun crackdown campaigns in homes whenever a shooting incident occurs. The campaign may be far from being a reality, but it will regulate against careless gun usage in public places. If a shooting incident occurs, the authorities should quickly identify the individual, and do a domestic raid in their homes. The increased rate of gun deaths in the US calls for the government to raid all the illegal firearms. According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database, 2017 marked the onward march of firearm fatalities. About 38,778 people lost their lives at the point of a gun (Mehalko, 2012). Such incidences are attributed to the laxities in the gun control laws. Besides the raids, all gun vendors must provide daily reports on gun sales to the authorities in the US so that the government can be sure the guns are only sold to the provided age brackets according to the GCA. If the information about gun sales and licensing will continue being a private affair for the related firms, then the states in the US will be far from solving mass shooting cases.
Stricter laws will reduce the school killings, hence the safety of the US younger generation. The strictness of the gun laws in this sense should encompass mental test for the gun owners (Andrés & Hempstead, 2011). Before guns are licensed to an individual, they must undergo metal tests to identify if they suffer any mental incapacity. Recent researches have linked a tiny fraction of gun violence to mental illness. While this percentage may seem small, the US government is committed to having zero unprecedented mass shootings (Mehalko, 2012). The same researches have linked the small percentage of gun shootings to individuals who have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The sole perpetrator of the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, was later identified to be suffering from mental incapacities, other than being linked to the Al- Qaeda (Duigan, 2018). In this incident alone, 49 people were killed on that fateful night. The similar case was witnessed in the massacre of 20 children in Newton Connecticut elementary school.
Counterargument
Those who oppose strict gun control argue from the perspective of their personal security, and the security of their family members. After the incident at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, many argued that both teachers, and students should be armed with firearms (Duigan, 2018). The debate further called for more weapons on the hands of the school staffs (Andrés & Hempstead, 2011). Those who oppose strict laws argue that innocent people continue to be killed without proper mechanisms for self-defense. Allowing school going children to own guns will thus allow them to have self-defense in cases of such shootings. Additionally, the majority of the perpetrators of mass shootings take the advantage, since they know school-going children are not self-armed (Mehalko, 2012). They do not think about retaliatory attacks, and execute their duties as planned. The laws in the US should thus be made flexible in a manner that people should be allowed to own licensed guns for self-defense.
Conclusion
In conclusion, gun control laws should be allowed to work in the US legal, and security systems. More strict laws will guarantee the desired public protection from the mass shootings. The law must control those who buy and own guns, based on the provisions of the GCA. Moreover, strict laws will guarantee the security system in the states in the US to conduct raids in houses belonging to the culprits of the mass shootings to identify more illegal firearms. With strict laws, the school going children are safer. However, the strict laws for the past decade have proved to be a nightmare because more killings are witnessed in the schools, and public gatherings as the opponents argue. As opposed to the strict laws, the opponents now want every person armed for purposes of self-defense. Nevertheless, the proponents of the strict laws also argue that the step will lead to more killings, and breach the GCA provisions.
References
Andrés, A. R., & Hempstead, K. (2011). Gun control and suicide: The impact of state firearm regulations in the United States, 1995–2004. Health Policy, 101(1), 95-103.
Duigan, B. (2018, June 10). Gun Control in the U.S. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com
Mehalko, L. (2012). This is Gun Country: The International Implications of US Gun Control Policy. BC Int’l & Comp. L. Rev., 35, 297.