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Royal Hughes

Tawanna Yates

English IV

20 November 2018

Why We Need More Gun Control In America

Its 3:18 pm on February 14, 2018 at Stoneman Douglas High School when gunman

Nikolas Cruz entered the high school and killed seventeen people and injured fourteen others.

Nikolas Cruz was armed with a AR-15 style semi automatic assault rifle. Nikolas Cruz was even

considered mentally disturbed, but he still had a gun in his possession. Children were calling

their parents from inside the school thinking it might be the last time they talk to them. Even

with incidents like this America still has over 300 million guns. There are a lot of reasons why

more gun control laws are needed, shootings like the one i mentioned above are happening

almost weekly. Gun violence is something that can't be avoided but with stronger gun laws the

amount of crimes that are being committed today could be decreased tremendously in the future.

Plus guns aren’t being used how the 2nd amendment intended them to be used. Guns are rarely

used for protection and its likely that guns wills escalate the danger of the situation. Stricter gun

control laws are needed to solve the gun violence problems that exist in America today.

Gun violence is a huge problem in America that isn't being dealt with. Everyday, on

average 342 people in the U.S. are involved in some sort of shooting ranging from murders to
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police interventions, forty-seven of which are children and teens. Mass shootings in America are

also increasing. As of November 8th, 2018 there has been 307 mass shootings in America alone,

with the most recent being the Thousand Oaks shooting on November 7th. Gun violence is one

of the leading causes of death with some 11,000 people on average being killed by firearms each

year, 15,070 murders were committed in 2016 alone. This might be because the U.S has almost

double the firearm ownership rate of any other country.

Civilians should not be able to use military grade weapons or weapon attachments. The

AR-15 is the most talked about gun when it comes to gun control and the reason why is because

its used more and more in mass shootings. Civilians also have the option fold and detach their

gun to conceal it or to add attachments such as flash suppressors to hide the flash of the shot and

conceal the location of the shooter, or silencers to muffle the sound of the gun. Guns like the

AR-15 and attachments like the flash suppressor and the silencer aren't needed in today's society

as they are more dangerous than helpful. Unlike the military who needs to be hidden from the

enemy, civilians don't need to hide the flash of their gun or silence it especially in self defense

cases. President Reagan banned assault weapons in 1994 including the AR-15, America needs

this ban once again to protect Americans from guns like these.

It isnt likely for a armed civilian to stop a crime especially mass shootings. It's more

likely that the civilian would make the situation even more dangerous. None of the sixty-two

mass shootings between 1982 and 2012 were stopped by a civilian. Gun rights activist argue that

a 2002 mass shooting at the Appalachian school of law was stopped by students but the students
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were current and former law enforcement and the shooter had no bullets when he was captured.

Now imagine if untrained teachers were armed with weapons. ​"The average gun owner, no

matter how responsible, is not trained in law enforcement or on how to handle life-threatening

situations, so in most cases, if a threat occurs, increasing the number of guns only creates a more

volatile and dangerous situation." Says Jeffrey Voccola, Assistant Professor of Writing at

Kutztown University's.

Guns are rarely used when it comes to self defense. Of the 29,618,300 violent crimes

were committed between 2007 and 2011 and out of those crimes only 235,700 protected

themselves with a firearm. Between 2007 and 2011, 84,495,500 , 0.12% of victims (103,000)

protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm. In 2016 private citizens justifiably

killed 331 people compared to the 15,070 people that were murdered in gun related crimes. Why

do we need more guns than people in America if they are rarely used to protect us?

More gun control laws are needed to keep Americans safe. Everyday Americans are

affected by some sort of gun violence. Mass shootings are happening weekly, killings and

robberies are happening daily. Guns are for protection but statistics show that they are rarely

used for such. Most Americans that own guns focus on upgrading their guns with attachments

that only make their gun more dangerous and hunting. Though owning a gun is a constitutional

right there needs to be more laws that control who gets those guns and how they should be able

to use them.
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Works Cited

Gun Control – Just Facts​, www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#crime.

“'Pure Evil': 17 Killed in Mass Shooting at Florida High School.” ​NBCNews.com​, NBCUniversal

News Group,

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n

848101.

“Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.” ​Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence |​,

www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics.

“Expanded Homicide.” ​FBI​, FBI, 25 Aug. 2017,

ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/expanded-homicide.

Gould, Melia Robinson Skye. “There Have Been 307 Mass Shootings in the US so Far in 2018 -

Here's the Full List.” ​Business Insider,​ Business Insider, 8 Nov. 2018,

www.businessinsider.com/how-many-mass-shootings-in-america-this-year-2018-2.

“Mass Shootings in America: Anatomy of a Hyped Statistic.” ​Video | RealClearPolitics​,

RealClearPolitics,

www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/04/mass_shootings_in_america_anatomy_of_

a_hyped_statistic_137960.html.
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