Gun Control Pros and Cons

Member of Congress, Republican from New York, Peter King proposed a bill prohibiting the citizens to carry firearms, at a distance closer than 300 meters from high-ranking officials of the federal government. As suggested by King, a man with a gun at a distance less than 300 meters from the event, featuring a president, vice-president, a member of Congress, a member of the Cabinet, the CIA director, or a federal judge, will be breaking the law. According to chief of NYPD, 65 per cent of murders in New York are committed with firearms. He added that 90 percent of illegal firearms come to New York from other states. Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed this, saying that an average of 34 Americans died every day as a result of gunshot wounds. Bloomberg led a group of 500 mayors of U.S. cities who oppose illegal firearms. He praised the efforts of President Barack Obama, who, in response to the invitation of the group, ordered to track purchases of automatic weapons used by drug gangs on the border with the Mexico. This is only one of the 40 proposals. Bloomberg noted that another step toward effective gun control is tightening procedures for background checks of personal data of a person acquiring weapons to prevent arms sales to addicts or mentally unhealthy people. He also said that the federal authorities should better communicate with each other, mentioning that the leadership of the U.S.A. army knew the fact that the perpetrator of the Arizona tragedy was an addict, but did not share that information with other federal agencies, which could put the information in a database. Mayor of York (PA) Kim Bracey warned that if lawmakers do not take measures to curb the violence with firearms, tragedies like that of Arizona, will be repeated again and again. Opponents of the “armory reform” argue that it will limit their freedom and violate their constitutional right to bear arms, dictated in the famous second amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The supporters brought banners in support of the use of weapons; in particular, the inscription on one of these posters reads “Save the Second Amendment, our last hope.” Some advocates for the free use of weapons defiantly use them taking to the protests organized by the ultra-conservative “Tea Party” their personal firearms. According to preliminary data, the shares were held without incident in the demonstrations in front of government buildings in major cities, and most state capitals had numbered 50 – 100 people. Extensive discussion on the issue of banning the free movement of arms in the country turned to the United States after December 14, 2012 when the 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot at Sandy Hook Elementary School Newtown twenty children and six adults. Murders by firearms in schools have occurred in the United States in recent years several times. The most massive of them took place on 16 April 2007 at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia) where a student shot 32 people and wounded 15. December 15, 2012 a 38-year-old Jason Letts fired a gun at a hospital in Birmingham (Alabama). Three people were injured. Then the 42-year-old local resident Marcos Gurrola was arrested by police after having opened fire at the shopping center in California. And in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, police arrested 18-year-old schoolboy, who planned to shoot students in the school and to film it on the video. December 16, 2012 in the U.S. state of Indiana, police arrested a man who threatened to fire near school. “The detainee seized 47 weapons,” – local media reported.

The main arguments of the supporters of “PRO”:

In the criminal world, those who are willing will use weapons against civilians; these weapons are in full and to the extent necessary. Only honest citizens have not got weapons who are defenseless against criminals, rapists, murderers.

Citizens will have the additional guarantee of their security. The legal weapons only in the rarest of cases used in the commission of crimes, and thus quite effectively help to repel an attack on the house and increase a person’s chances to remain unharmed.

Weapon – the instrument that can save your life.

Basket-cases always and everywhere are full and can kill you with his fist or a knife. This is no reason not to give normal citizens the right to protection.

Native police cannot protect citizens from everything. The crime rate in the country increased tenfold compared to a few years earlier. In the so-called “free society” citizen has a right to defend himself. Protecting themselves with guns is a “natural” right of a citizen. Any offender will now be wary of resistance from a citizen with a gun.

The main arguments of the supporters of “AGAINST”:

The legalization of weapons will lead to increased levels of aggression in the relationship between people and the increase in the number of crimes and murders, including domestic homicides.

Increase the probability of an “accidental” death of any innocent person and, as a consequence, the overall reduction in the safety. Now you are afraid to get into dismantling yard bullies, and tomorrow you will duck behind bushes by stray bullets.

The legalization increases its attractiveness, provokes the expansion and opens the expression of interest from the public. Many will buy weapons, not because they feel the threat of the attack because the arms may appear in others, and it will become “normal.

If before criminals could count on weapons stolen from police, from the factories of military structures, now this amount will increase dramatically due to the theft from citizens and from the shops.

Nobody can guarantee that a very wide range of people far from the permits and licenses will use the gun.

Statistics in the free sale of arms is made as it is profitable. Examples of firing in schools, theaters, universities, with many victims are heard everywhere. There are areas where people do not advice to walk because you can be shot.

If before the criminals had guns, but they tried to hide and feared being caught with them, now they will buy a permit and will be walking around with it. Previously, you could at least try to run away from them or fight back with fists, now you have a chance to be shot.

Everyone understands how people get the permission; everyone can have the weapon if he wants it.

Permit for the free sale of firearms would lead to serious changes in social culture, stereotypes, interpersonal relationships and, it will require many people to address the issues of choice of weapons, training in the use, storage, maintenance, lack of access.

At present, the law does not meet the public with a great deal of firearms in the hands. In most cases, even if the person is protected, he/she will be imprisoned for a decent period of time.

Once allowed the weapons, so the resulting weapon is stolen, selected and used in the certain applications. And only criminals need this legalization.

Recently, the courts and the police actually stopped using the rate of self-defense. In relation to the offender the service weapon will be used, thereby, the police will act especially hard.

Work Cited

Anderson, Jervis. Guns In America. NY: Random House Inc., 1984. Print.

Daynes, Byron W., and Tatalovich, Raymond. Moral controversies in American politics. Armonk,

N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2005 Print.

“United States. Anti-Crime Program. Hearings Before Ninetieth Congress, First Session.”

Washington. 1967. Print.

Wilcox, Clyde, and Bruce, John W. The changing politics of gun control. Lanham, Md:

Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Print.