Should be the possession of the firearm law reinforced or relaxed?
In 1791, the United States Bill of Rights were ratified which included the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which stated that “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (Second Amendment, n.d.) This basic right let people to buy their own firearms and now 36,000 Americans are killed by guns each year, which is an average of 100 per day. On April 16, 2007, 32 students dead, 17 injured in Virginia Tech University in Virginia. On October 1, 2017, 59 people dead, 850 people injured in Las Vegas, California. On February 14, 2018, 17 students dead and 17 students injured in at Marjory Stone man Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. On August 3, 2019, 22 people killed and 24 injured in El Paso, TX. (Gun Violence Statistics, n.d.) Every time it happened, people in the world shocked and cried for victims. People were dying by guns which were supposed to protect them ironically. Even though it’s been a long time since the use of firearms has been legalized, the voices of gun control supporters are still high because of the numbers of killed rises every year; and the opponents insist that’s why they need firearms to protect from the tragic incidents. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Gonzalez was speaking after Florida massive shooing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to people who agreed with the law reinforcement of the possession of the firearms. She thought the government should involve the massive shooting prevention more actively. She said, “The guns have changed but our laws have not” (Gonzalez, para. 2). The law only allows people to buy firearms and don’t restrict not to make it automatic. If it is not automatic, suspects need more time to reload their bullets, and that means more time for victims to escape. She also said, “In Florida, to buy a gun you do not need a permit, you do not need a gun license, and once you buy it you do not need to register.”, and “You can buy as many guns as you want at one time.” (Gonzalez, para. 3)” That supports her purpose of the speech that there is no way to tract where the each firearm is now in Florida. Even buying a car requires more license, documents to sign, and proofs to get auto loan to show the person is responsible to pay off. However, when a person buys a gun which only its purpose is killing something, no one requests any of those and doesn’t know who has what. Also, there is no regulation for limiting the possession of the firearms. Any potential suspects can buy as many as they want and choose one of them to kill people as many as they can in a short time. She used other contents to improve the quality of speech like ““I found out today there’s a website shootingtracker.com” (Gonzalez, para. 6) and “To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you” (Gonzalez, para. 11). That tells that the government is passive to solve the situation. There is no official department running by government where collects the data and address it to public. No website ending with .gov is found regarding firearm incidents reports. Also, if politicians take donations from a profit organization, they can’t be the neutral position when they make rules. Additionally, Gonzalez gave an example of different countries and said, “Australia had one mass shooting in 1999 in Port Arthur (and after the) massacre introduced gun safety, and it hasn’t had one since.” (Gonzalez, para. 6) This indicates that other countries where has strong gun safety law, they don’t experience massive gun shooting like America does. That means reinforced law works appropriately to prevent tragedies.
Also, Gonzalez insists people need to focus on the victims and speak up to prevent selling weapons to people who have unstable mental. Her speech was very infuriated and appealing. She touched people’s emotion by saying “We are going to be the last mass shooting.” (Gonzalez, para. 8), Gonzalez strongly wanted this type of no mercy shooting stops immediately. People are dying with no reasons. Some of them are too young to die, or some others are not ready to say bye to their family yet. She was in more detailed style about the high school shooting criminal and explained about him. “Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter.” (Gonzalez, para. 9) “I’m talking about the people he lived with. I’m talking about the neighbors who saw him outside holding guns.” (Gonzalez, para. 10) The massive shooting was predictable because the suspect had diagnosed with mental disease and showed many signs from his social media. For example, he showed his photos and videos with fully automatic firearms in his SNS, and didn’t hesitate to express his unstable mental status. Addition to preventing selling, autonomous watch out and reporting system from neighborhood and social media is needed because they are able to detect something is wrong. In his SNS, people only encouraged him to make his weapons to be automatic and fancy. No one brings up his unstable mental status and warned people. Gonzalez brought a mistake example of President Trump. “In February of 2017, one year ago, President Trump repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people to people with certain mental illnesses.” (Gonzalez, para. 14) This provided higher chance to people with mentally ill to buy firearms and express his/her no mercy anger to public by shooting people. Some crazy people want attention from others, so they shoot nonspecific people. Also, she added, “he would not have harmed that many students with a knife.” (Gonzalez, para. 9) It’s because those many people didn’t need to die if the suspect couldn’t buy a firearm in the first moment. By mentioning “they say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun.” (Gonzalez, para. 18), the passage indicated more gun shooting will occur if they don’t reinforce gun safety because people will shot others with more reasons. Basically, more opportunities brings more chances. So, having a gun to protect themselves is ironic if they want reduce shooting incidents. With many examples of other countries and detailed information about the suspect, the structure of Gonzalez’s speech was strong and competitive.
In the other hand, Bennett thinks the possession of the firearms is the basic right to protect people themselves, so it is not something the government intervention needed. She was speaking to people who support her and people who against her at the same time. “All I have to say is that I am sick and tired of this gun control being spewed by these commies.” (Bennett, para. 1) The general mood of her speech was uncomfortable and challengeable feelings about the protestors. Regarding the rule of gun control, she said, “ninety-eight percent of mass shootings happen in gun free zones.” (Bennett, para. 3) She was trying to say the law reinforcement like setting gun free zones doesn’t work its purpose as expected. So many people have firearms already and they are not traceable, and deciding who can buy a gun after background check is not realistic. “I don’t believe there should be background checks. It’s not the government’s job to tell me I need a permit to conceal a weapon. I honestly don’t get it.” (Bennett, para. 7) The government’s background check is also made of someone opinion, so it can bring up discrimination issue. Her speech was generally colloquial and informal sometimes. However, she pointed out her main ideas like, “Now my generation has to fight even harder to gain our rights back.” (Bennett, para. 5) Bennett reveals that gun controlling law reinforcement can be also taking away someone’s basic right to protect him or herself. People need to be careful to decide the law to avoid bias. She brought some issue from college to support her idea. “Colleges are not the same as many of you remember them.” (Bennett, para. 13) Because of fast social change, college students are not innocent like in the past. They do drugs, fraud, or even commit a serious crime. Schools are already know the situation has been changed and prepare for shooting incidents. “They have safe spaces now. They have cry closets.” (Bennett, para. 13) With that detail, Bennett tried to extend the idea that more restriction means too passive for the current social change.
Also Bennett tells people shouldn’t be emotional and say they need to look at the situation with rational point of view to adjust the current situation. It looks like Bennett understands people who are emotional when she said, “They come from emotion, and I get the emotion.” (Bennett, para. 3) However, it actually means she wants to see the situation without any bias. Her purpose of the speech is very clear that she doesn’t want to compromise with people who insist gun control law reinforcement by saying, “I support the Second Amendment, BUT…” no you don’t! …We don’t want compromise.” (Bennett, para. 6). Bennett brought her personal experiences as contents to persuade people. “I got death threats, people want to rape me, but I’m armed so it’s not going to happen, so I don’t know what they’re doing.” (Bennett, para. 11) The massive shooting was very tragedy. And her normal life with death and rape threat also is tragedy. The only way to protect her from those potential danger is having a gun and show it them not to even try. All those harmful threats only supports her opinion about gun control. “I have to thank them for being so nasty and proving to everybody why we carry.” (Bennett, para. 12) She confirmed again her main idea with “I should be able to protect myself on my campus against rapist.” (Bennett, para. 13) and “So what we need to normalize, what we need to be normal on college campuses is firearms.” (Bennett, para. 13). She stressed again how personal protection is important from small threat to massive shooting. Her speech structure didn’t hesitate to express her own opinion about the protestors and approached the current social change though college life.
In conclusion, some people strongly support the law reinforcement of the possession of the firearms due to high rate of massive shooting victims by mentally ill criminals; the others insist they don’t need the government’s restriction, and keeping firearms is important to protect themselves from unpredictable danger. It looks like Gonzalez and Bennett’s opinions are conflicting each other, but their basic idea is the same which is all people’s lives are important and need to be protected. If people who support Gonzalez can come up with more realistic legislations which does not infringe on the basic rights, and people who support Bennett can accept it with open mind, the rate of the gun violation will be reduce like other countries and many people will be protected as both of them wish.
References
Abadi, M. (August, 2019). 18 of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history.
Gun Violence Statistics. (n.d.). https://lawcenter.giffords.org/facts/gun-violence-statistics/
Second Amendment. (n.d.). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment