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Adam Harder
Jeff Knehans
English 2
7 March 2014
The Gun Control Debate
The gun control debate has been roaring for over 60 years and continues to be a
problem today. A spike in shootings this last year or so have pushed this issues back on
the desks of politicians and lawmakers. We see this topic come up again and again so
why have we yet to see conclusion on it? well the fact is that gun control is a great idea in
theory but has and is likely to continue to fail in practice. The reason for this is that the
gun control debate focuses on the wrong topic. Because homicide doesnt account for
most of the gun deaths in the United States or in the world, instead suicide does. Chris
kirk reporter for slate magazine stated that about two thirds of all gun deaths in america
are from suicide. However this doesnt mean that gun control cant work, we must focus
the anti gun policies on the area that matters as well as trying to solve the problem in
other ways.
Gun debate has been a hot button issue in America for approx. 65 years and
continues to be. Its completely understanding especially when we see that over 32,000
individuals die from guns every single year, thats about 10 out of every 100,000. many
proponents of gun control and theyre very impressive. However if we look at the
historical record we see that gun control measures have never been effective. Despite
the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, The Gun Control Act of 1968 (of which the ATF said
"...was enacted for the purpose of keeping firearms out of the hands of those not legally
entitled to possess them because of age, criminal background, or incompetence."), the
Armed Career Criminal Act, Firearms Owners Protection Act, Law Enforcement Officers
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Protection Act all of 1986,the Crime Control Act of 1990, the Brady Handgun Violence
Prevention Act, and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act both of
1994(most importantly of which is the Assault weapon ban which expired in 2004) we
see a steady rise in gun deaths every single year. The problem at hand is continually
ignored by the proponents of gun control. the fact of the matter is that until we can
prevent the continued growth of suicide we will never solve the problem. We also see
that ever since the topic of gun control became issue we have yet to see a single piece of
legislation in congress that deals with suicide at all, but the topic has especially been
ignored when it comes to gun control. Out of the ten most important gun control bills
passed, many of which were named above, and the hundreds of others brought up over
the years not a single one addresses the problem.
Suicide has always been and continues to be a taboo issue, one we dont want to
be brought up, but instead just want to be forgotten. That is the extremely unfortunate
reality of the world we live in. Reporter Chris Kirk continues The gun control debate in
America often centers on homicide. But if the phrase gun violence in America brings
to your mind pictures of mall shootings and school massacres and gang warfare, please
remember the uncounted, unreported victims of guns in this country. he is referencing
that out of the 29,573 people killed by guns, and the 30,622 people who killed
themselves in 2001 that 16,869 of them unfortunately fit into both of those categories.
This has only escalated in recent years. for example by 2005 the number had jumped
from 16,869 to over 17,000 and by 2011 it was up to 19,300. until we solve the problem
of gun deaths due to suicide then we will never solve the problem of deaths from guns in
general.
Let me be clear in what im saying. I fully support gun control, but not in the
sense of making assault rifles illegal. Instead we need to make it more difficult to get
guns, in the sense of more extensive background searches and a look at mental history of
not only the person himself but also of close family members who would potentially
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have access to the gun. a bill making proper storage of deadly firearms mandatory could
also go a long way. We will never be able to stop suicide from happening, especially with
guns, but we can make a dramatic change just by making it harder for these suicidal,
and also criminal individuals to get the weapons. This is key in lowering the number of
gun related suicides but also in stopping crime. For example the Colorado shooting that
happened. The man who was eventually arrested, charged, and convicted of the shooting
was shown to suffer from mental illness. The shooting at the Air Force base was under
similar conditions in the sense that he suffered and was known to suffer from
schizophrenia and paranoia. If gun control legislation can take a turn towards these
factors we can finally see them make a difference in the U.S.
Finally we can stop looking at the issue of guns and strictly at suicide. whether
we want to change things for gun safety or because we have a moral imperative to do
so we need to take a stance on suicide. This is an issue that we continually complain
about but have yet to attempt change. Yet again we see no bills trying to take a stance
on suicide passing through congress because people are too scared to talk about it.
The number of suicides every year is 4 times that of gun violence between individuals,
reaching up to about 40,000 every year and we see it steadily climbing. We desperately
need to take a step back and take a look at what we can do to attempt to lower suicide
rates and put this age old problem away.
Though gun control has continually been a problem we cant expect change the
way we are going at it currently. When we understand and except that gun deaths come
down to suicide we can start to make a difference. Orienting our policies not only to an
increased gun control stance but an increased federal government presence and
opinion on suicide we can make a huge impact not only i the figures but in individual
peoples lives. If that isnt reward enough then we have not only failed to control
violence we have failed to be human beings.