Gun Violence a Huge Part of American Society

The topic I am writing about today is gun control. The reason I am writing about this topic because gun violence has taken a huge part of American society today. In the United States, there are many cases are firearm related, from robbery to murder and the biggest concern to the society is now, school shooting. School shooting has made today’s society emotionally sad and disappointed. The most recent school shooting happened tragically left 17 students killed, and it took place in Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida.

After the incident, people came up with the idea of banning Semi-Automatic rifles, as known as “Assault Rifles”. Shortly after that, people came up with a “better idea” that “Why don’t we just ban all the guns in the United States?” Then people started acting aggressively towards gun businesses and targeting gun shows to forcing the gun show to close down. Let me ask people some serious questions “Will gun control going to reduce the number of crime?” or “Is gun control going to be beneficial to our lawful citizens?”

The answer is No.

To explain, crime happens every day and it does not always have to be firearm related, firearms are tools that usually chosen by criminals to use in an unlaw act, because it is easy to used to cause damage or kill in an effective range. But once again, crime does not always have to be firearms related. “While there is research that suggests that people who consume a lot of violent media may have some attitudinal changes and become inured to suffering and tend to be more likely to “blame the victim”, nothing in that research supports the notion that consumers of violent media will act on what they see.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified

Proficient in: Crime

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Attitudes and behaviors are not necessarily connected” (Raskoff).According to the sources, the number four cause of death in the United States is vehicle accidents and the death rates by accidents are way higher than firearm related incidents.

I think people should be more focusing on telling people to stay off their cellular devices while they are operating a motor vehicle on the road, or they should not be operating their motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and marijuana. People don’t really understand the reality of gun control; gun control could lead to increasing the numbers of crime, because criminals know that no one is legally armed or supposed to be armed. But in the other hand, if gun control law will never pass, and the state will start to issuing out conceal carry permits to those who qualify, then people could at least have a chance to fight for their lives. I always believe that a good guy with a gun can actually stop a bad guy with a gun and not all the guns are bad but depends on in whose hands. Three years ago, an Arizona police officer was fatally shot by a suspect during traffic stop.

Then, an armed lawful citizen stopped by and killed the suspect by returning fire, who later rescued the officer. Gun control isn’t the answer, people need to have the right mindset to face the reality, because America is a country found on guns. The second amendment was found in 1791 to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms, to give access to lawful citizens with firearms as their hobby, hunting tool, and to self defense. But unfortunately the second amendment is also benefiting the criminals who are using firearms as their tools to committing crimes and disturbing the peace. According to the Department of Defense “The 2015 Department of Defense Inspector General report analyzed a sample of 1,102 convictions, including felonies, handled in the military court system and found the Navy, Air Force and Marines failed to send criminal history or fingerprint data to the FBI in about 30 percent of them” (Norman). Many criminals are able to getting access to firearms in numerous ways, such as straw purchasing, black market purchasing and any firearm deals failed to do their job by incorrectly submitting the customer’s information to the Department of Justice.

That being said, gun control does not stop criminals from getting possession of a firearm and this also apply to teenagers who is under age from getting a firearm. “Straw purchasers are sometimes drugged addicts who buy guns in exchange for drugs or money, our interviews indicate.29 A former Miami gang member, who is now 38 years old, told us: He bought his first gun from a neighbor at age 15 and became a member of the Latin Kings soon after that. “When you’re a gang member, you have to carry a firearm.” Over four years, he and his fellow gang members made 50 to 60 straw purchases from four gun stores” (Parnell). Straw purchase has always been a big issue to our society and it is also taking a huge part of why gun control does not stop criminals. Because criminals can purchase firearms in numerous ways and does not have to be known which straw purchase is one of them. Many people may ask why do criminals straw purchase? Why can’t they just walking into a gun store to purchase a firearm like others did? Let me to explain, every firearm are registered through Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as known as ATF.

When people purchasing a firearm at a federal firearm licensed dealer will automatically submit ‘their’ informations to the Department of Justice, as known as DOJ, to run their background check to make sure that the purchaser is not a felon or prohibited from possessing a firearm. If a person who had committed felonies before on their record would have shown that they are prohibited from possessing a firearm. Since they are not able to purchasing a firearm through a legal dealer and that is where straw purchasing comes in. Obviously, they would not be doing something legal with that weapon where they obtained illegally. Gun control does not solve the whole problem, but mentally is taking a huge responsibility. “Serious mental illness, which includes conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, seems to have played a role in several mass shootings. The Virginia Tech, Tucson (Santos 2012), and Aurora (Sallinger 2012) shooters appear to have had serious mental illness, and the perpetrator of the 2014 Fort Hood shooting also had a history of mental illness. Mentally health is a significant public health in the United States and it is playing a huge role in mass shootings.

People with mental illness are usually the ones who would perpetuate of all serious violence toward others. “A number of studies of school shootings, the influential FBI report in 1999, and the reports of the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Education’s Safe School Initiative in 2000 and 2002 were consistent in finding that there was no profile of a school shooter that was helpful in prospectively identifying the perpetrators. Except for the fact that all were male, the perpetrators were quite varied: few attackers had no close friends, only about one-third were characterized as loners, and the majority had never been in disciplinary trouble at school or had a history of violence. Many attackers had felt bullied or persecuted at school. Of the 37 school shootings investigated by the Safe School Initiative, only one-third of the attackers had ever received a mental health evaluation and only 7 (17%) had ever been diagnosed with a mental health or behavioral disorder.

Majority of school shootings were conducted by its own students, according to the investigations that were conducted by the officials showing that the students were either undering some serious stress level, such as pressures from home or school, or physical abuse, such as bully. Most of time, students decide to keep the secret to themselves and not to tell their parents or teacher, because they are afraid of being confront against by bullies. To better solve the problem, the school should be offering a stress relief class or some sort of anti-stress course to help the students deal with their stress level and can have social workers to go into bullies. Gun control isn’t the answer to school shooting or firearm related incidents. Gun control could be only benefiting criminals because they do not need to purchase firearms from gun stores and they do not need to worry about anyone has a conceal carry permit because nobody is supposed to have one. People with proper knowledge and trainings on firearms may potentially stop the criminals and help to deducing the number of crimes.