Gun Control Essay, Research Paper

Gun control

At about 11.15 a.m., a sound from outside: pop-pop-Bang Klebold, 17 and Harris, 18, are heavily armed an assault rifle, sawed off shotguns, handguns shooting as they walk, gunshots echo. Students fall. One gets up to run and others follow…some students are slain at their desks, one with pencil still in hand. The gunmen play peek-a-boo with others, finding them covering under desks and opening fire one assailant says: Oh, my God. Look at this black kid s brain. Awesome, man! . This is a segment of an article published by the Boulder News about the tragedy at Columbine High School. One of the most terrible disaster that happened in United States two years ago. I would like to say that this history is part of a horror film but unfortunately this is just part of our reality.

Each day we watch the news, we read newspaper or magazines and we find many cases of homicides, unintentionally accidents, injuries or suicides produced by a firearm, fathers who kill their child, wives who kill their husbands, children who accidentally kill someone. In front of this case, could anyone say that gun control is not necessary to prevent this kind of tragedy? Aren t these enough reasons to support gun control? My answer is Yes . I means by Gun control the norms or rulers that the government establishes to regulate the use of any kind of gun. According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Gun control is the government limitation of the purchase and ownership of firearms .

By these regulations the government is trying to protect many people s lives because in our today s society more and more people own a gun. Certainly, gun ownership in the United States is widely extended. Federal officials estimate that Americans may own 200 million guns; more than 13 million guns were purchased in 1993 and 1994 combined, including 6.5 million handguns (Hird & Reese 313).

I believe that gun control has a principal aim that is protect the life of many people. Also, gun control would help to decrease crime rates in the population and it will help to reduce the costs of shooting.

First of all, gun control was established because it will help us to be safer. Many people think that having a gun at home will help them to protect themselves in case on any assault, however a handgun in the home is forty three times more likely to kill a member of the family or an acquaintance than an intruder (Rosen 178). Moreover, there are many unintentionally injuries caused by a gun because people who own a gun at home will use it carelessly. Furthermore, children in the household would play with these arms and accidentally kill somebody when their parents aren t at home. In fact, children are into the major victims of handguns usually killed by other children. A study of 266 accidental handgun shootings of children found that nearly 90 percent took place in the child s own home or a friend s home. In a little over half the cases, the shooters were other children (Hird & Reese 321).

Secondly, Gun control should help to decrease the crime rate in the population. We are concerning about the increase of crime rates because we want to live in a safety place for us, our children, our families. In fact, handgun murders have been increasing every year since 1987. There were nearly 12,000 murders in 1991, and more than 24,000 handgun deaths in all (Greider 319). Controlling the use of guns incidence in crime will decrease and we will have a good atmosphere where our children could grow up without violence.

In addition to these reasons, a consequence of shooting, there is an extraordinary cost. The annual health care bill for treating gunshot wounds has been estimated at $4 billion-most of it borne by taxpayers. A study by University of California at Davis researchers calculated the average cost of hospital treatment for gunshot victims at $13,200, with individual cases ranging as high as $495,000 (Greider 322). If gun control is established property the state would spend more money in new programs to improve computer labs for schools or improve the quality of the service in hospitals for example.

On the other hand some people argue that guns don t increase crime rates. They said that the number of handgun murders in the United States decreased in the last several years, however, I found that crimes rates involving the use of handguns in United States are exceptionally high when compared to those of the other countries. In 1992, there were 13,495 handgun murders in the United States, compared with 33 in Britain, 60 in Japan, and 128 in Canada (Hird & Reese 313). We note that crime rates are increasing because there is not a day in which the news mentions some gun shooting. How the statistics should show lower crime rates? Are we waiting another school shooting as Columbine high school to realize how important is gun control in today s society? Are we waiting that some member of our family be involved by shooted or injuried to support gun control? I hope don t.

Gun control is a serious problem that anyone should consider because we want to live in a safety city without violence and crime, we want to live in a place where our children could grow up without any risks for them and By gun control more money should be spend in programs that are beneficial for us.