Political Perspectives: Enough is enough, gun control
Editor’s Note: Kristen Rodriguez is a freshman at UNCW majoring in Political Science with a minor in International Relations. Kristen is a contributing writer for The Seahawk and writes many of the pieces featured in Political Perspectives. All opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Kristen may be found on Twitter @kristen_rodd. All suggestions and inquires may be sent via email to [email protected].
The debate on gun control has been going on since the Constitutional Convention made the second amendment in 1791, but a lot of things have changed since then. The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 31% of the world’s mass shootings occur here. Between 1966 and 2012, there were 90 mass shootings that occurred.
A mass shooting is defined as a shooting that kills 4 or more people, not including gang violence or the deaths of multiple family members. People always blame the person who committed the act, who is 100% at fault for the tragedy they provoke, but how did they get there? Why do we live in a society where we are given the opportunity to harm one another?
People who oppose gun control say that guns are necessary for protection, but when you’re put into a situation like Orlando, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, there is no way to anticipate those events, no preparation, no way to know you’ll need protection. How do you expect people in those situations to be prepared for something so unthinkable?
People accuse the left of wanting to revoke the second amendment, and while I’m sure there is an extremist out there who believes that is the only option, it is not what the majority believes. Most policy makers that are for gun control simply call for more extensive background checks, more thorough training on how to properly use the weapons and limitation on the types of weapons you can buy. Is that too much to ask for the chance to possibly save the lives of people all over the country?
Guns are not necessary to human survival and they are not a basic human right. Not being gunned down at a concert, a club or at a school should be a basic human right. Gun rights advocates argue that if gun ownership were made illegal, then only people who broke the law (i.e. criminals) would have access to guns, leaving law abiding citizens at a disadvantage. Now, one can admit this fear isn’t completely misguided, if guns were totally outlawed there is no doubt that black market gun sales would rise rapidly. The thing is that most people do not want a totally gun banishment, all they want is a restriction on who can buy guns, when, where and how. They also want the banning of weapons similar to the types used in the Las Vegas attack, which have no place in normal civilization.
If Las Vegas has shown anything, it’s that the gun issue has gone much too far. The gunman had 23 weapons, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition, at his disposal. This is the kind of behavior gun control activists wish to see change in: they want to see change in how people can buy guns and limits on how many they can buy. Imagine if someone had monitored the amount of weaponry the Las Vegas shooter bought. Would things have been different?
Gene Ralno • Oct 20, 2017 at 9:01 pm
Since you didn’t propose universal confiscation, I assume you simply wish to make acquisition, possession, bearing and disposition an onerous and expensive process. At the end, we come to the same result — disarmament. Your discussion was precipitated by the the Las Vegas nut who committed his crimes from a place where firearms aren’t allowed. Since he’s obviously driven by an as yet undetermined motive and wealthy, simply denying all the little peaceable, lawful people the means to self defense doesn’t seem to make any sense. Sorry, not buying it. Seems you’ve fallen prey to hackneyed leftist propaganda.
Limiting the issue to “gun” stuff is a leftist flimflam. Instead of yammering, you might encourage our leaders to start dealing with the real problem — not gun murders — just murders. We both know they won’t because the differences in murder rates between western nations already are infinitesimal, measured in thousandths of a percent. Prevailing propaganda brazenly ignores the fact that illegal aliens commit 5,639 murders in the U.S. every year and it’s a uniquely American problem. Eliminate those murders and the U.S. would be among the safest one-third of the world. As a bonus, enforcement of existing firearms laws to double the sentences of our own criminals would further reduce the murder rate.
Most importantly is this question. What drives leftists to such extremes when they know a hundred million owners won’t tolerate confiscation? Fact is leftists will settle for universal registration because that fundamentally transforms a hundred million owners into dependents. The democrat party cannot survive without more than half the nation being dependent on the government. And they cannot create sufficient numbers of dependents without a great deal of fast talk and slick tricks. Josef Stalin was a master at creating dependents. He simply killed everyone who was not dependent on the government. Then he seized their property and converted them into collective farms and government factories.
Michael DeClue • Oct 20, 2017 at 12:52 pm
Gun Rights. In Washington State, anyone who has been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence is ineligible to possess a firearm. … Answer me this, how many gun crimes (%) are committed by individuals already prohibited the possession or purchase of a gun?
The answer to that directly relates to the effectiveness of the strategy of regulation of guns, and I quote “3 percent of murders and crimes are committed with guns from people who actually (legally) purchase those guns.”.
Your strategy applies to the 3%, not the 97% who are ALREADY IN VIOLATION of the law.