
When the US gained independence from Great Britain, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to establish a list of rights for the people of this new country. Many of these rights have become extremely controversial in the modern world. Specifically, gun control has been a huge debate in recent news, due to many mass shootings in our society. People who shouldn’t be capable of handling these weapons are coming into contact with them somehow and doing a lot of devastating damage. A poem titled “Don’t Make No Sense” is the epitome of this debate. The author used brilliant examples, backed by cold, hard facts. After reading this poem, one will realize that something needs to be done about this problem before this country starts having a mass shooting every week. 

The poem “Don’t Make No Sense” thoroughly addresses the topic of gun control and clearly states why it is necessary by asking the reader numerous rhetorical questions. One that includes a statistic as a counter argument against the gun rights advocates reads, “Just let the bill go through, 89 people die by guns every single day. Can’t run from the truth. Amendment 2 make us safer, you say?” (Power Poetry). The gun rights advocates continuously revert to the second amendment for their reason why gun control is unconstitutional. They think that the second amendment can and will protect them in any gun-related case, because the Constitution states that you have the right to bear arms. If people can repeatedly use the second amendment excuse, then something needs to be passed to control each of these circumstances. From the looks of it, people are beginning to abuse that their second amendment rights. Is this what we want? These regulations would heavily improve many aspects of our society, even ones other than keeping gun-related deaths at a minimum. “Got to crack down on these abuses; make it harder for people to procure it. Right background checks mean write less checks for the families of the victims of the shootings” (Power Poetry). These background checks would cause less deaths, ultimately leading to less money spent towards victim compensation funds.

Every time there is a new news story about a mass shooting, it seems like it was just yesterday when the last one occurred. The sad thing is that the news doesn’t cover every mass shooting, but only a small percentage of them. Since the public is largely unaware of the scope of the shootings, the issue is a lot worse than what people have heard about. A recent statistic explains just how bad it is: “The U.S. has many more guns -- and gun deaths -- than any other developed country. In 2014, there were more than 33,000 such deaths in this country” (Junior Scholastic). This number is abysmal. Many of these are accidents, homicides, or suicides. Despite that, many them occur because of large-scale massacres. Any way these deaths occur, that number is exceedingly too high for the sake of this country. The US is such a well-developed country; the people should know better than to use deadly weapons for anything other than sport or self-defense. Many times, there are incidents that happened to be just tragic accidents. Accidents can be easily prevented, though. Other times, specifically mass shootings, there are incidents that are well thought-out and planned. If accidents can be prevented, then how come mass shootings that are planned in advance can’t be? Therefore, gun control is the ultimate prevention tactic in order to limit this issue, whether an accident or not. 

Actions to prevent gun violence have been heavily delayed because of the even split between the political parties. Both sides have powerful arguments to prove that they have the correct viewpoint, never finding a common solution. Democrats are the ones who are fighting for more restrictions on weapons, while Republicans, known as the gun’s rights’ advocates, are arguing that gun control violates their second amendment rights (Junior Scholastic). It also has to do with whether or not you live in an urban setting or a rural setting. If you are from a city, it would make more sense to advocate for gun control because of the density of the population. One person can cause devastation to a city. More people live in urban settings, which doesn’t make the fact that, “polls show about 9 out of 10 Americans support universal background checks on gun purchases and a majority support bans on high-capacity magazines” (Time) too surprising. That being said, “as the country becomes more urban and more diverse, some pollsters find fewer people telling them they have a gun at home than at any other point in almost 40 years” (Time). People from rural settings tend to do more hunting and activities with guns that are sport related, which is why they argue for gun rights. Gun rights advocates use the second amendment to protect their rights for weapon possession, being they have the right to arm themselves for hunting, sport, and self-defense. They also say that weapons are a way to create a safer society because it gives an everyday citizen the “power of self-defense” (Junior Scholastic). On the subject of how guns make society safer, NRA executive Wayne LaPierre said, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with gun” about how weapons can make society safer (Junior Scholastic). In the past, the gun rights advocates have won the debate. The US Supreme Court has ruled twice on whether or not weapon possession is protected by the second amendment, both times being a 5-to-4 decision favoring gun rights. Those decisions by the Supreme Court were made back in 2008 and 2010 (Junior Scholastic). It really depends on how an individual interprets the second amendment, which happens to be extremely inconsistent. It states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” (Junior Scholastic). Most people in favor of gun rights say that means that individuals are allowed to own guns, which they are. These regulations are meant to keep these malevolent killers from obtaining the types of weapons that should have restrictions, like assault weapons that have been proven to be the cause of many mass shootings. 

Ever since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, mass shootings have been more frequent and more serious. Over the past decade, there have been school shootings like Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, and Virginia Tech, just to name a few, yet nothing has been done to prevent these occurrences. Another statistic from the poem that makes this argument clearer states, “353 in 15 alone, 9 in Roseburg, 14 in San ‘dino. This sort of activity must not be condoned and why still zero work on control though?” (Power Poetry). These incidents show that as society advances, as well as technology, these shootings become more tragic. We can’t just keep living our lives hoping that there won’t be a school shooting tomorrow. How many mass shootings will it take until the majority of the general public realize that gun restrictions are, and have been, necessary in this society? When people think of gun control, they naturally assume that it is the attempt to ban most weapons. That is not the case. Most gun rights’ advocates argue that it is taking away their second amendment rights. Gun control is simply just restrictions on weapons so that the wrong people aren’t able to buy or sell them, as well as what types of weapons can be bought or sold. The restrictions that are being focused on recently are “background checks for buyers, laws regulating who can carry weapons in public, and the kinds of guns that are available for purchase” (Junior Scholastic). The safety of this society is more important than whether or not someone can carry a military-grade weapon, which has been proven to be capable of mass shootings in this country. Of course, there will still be problems with guns if gun control is passed, but it will limit the amount substantially. 

Most current gun restrictions are at the state level. Therefore, it doesn’t help the cause when states like Texas and Kansas are so conservative that they recently passed new laws making weapon possession more lenient, while Connecticut and New York passed new restrictions on assault weapons. Now, in Kansas, “gun owners are no longer required to have a license to carry a concealed weapon” (Junior Scholastic). The debate is split very evenly. As soon as one state acts to make more restrictions, another state acts to make less restrictions. On a federal scale, the government has done little to help this matter. All they have done is create rational laws that are necessary in our society.  Some of these federal laws prohibits specific groups to own weapons. Those groups consist of convicted felons, people with a mental illness, and immigrants without legal status. Passed in 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act requires licensed gun dealers to conduct background checks on potential buyers through an FBI database, which is meant to prevent the sale of guns to anyone prohibited from owning one (Junior Scholastic). Even adopting these small laws does minimal damage. There are many loopholes around these laws. One such loophole is the underground markets. With that being said, those “prohibited groups” still end up getting their hands on weapons. There are other ways as well, of course. One being the gun show loophole, where “hobbyists”, who are not required to conduct background checks on buyers, do their business at gun shows (Junior Scholastic). 

It isn’t a matter of banning weapons to the extent that hunting rifles are no longer allowed. The government would never take away someone’s right to have a hunting rifle for hunting. This is a matter of where to set reasonable limits because clearly there needs to be some restrictions that are just common sense, but would still protect those who deserve to have and use weapons. Law-abiding people would still be allowed to have firearms, and if weapons are kept out of unstable hands, there would be far fewer deaths (Junior Scholastic). It is mainly about those people who should not have control of such a powerful weapon. Very recently, there was a shooting in Orlando at a nightclub, which was the worst mass shooting in modern American history. A total of 49 people were killed, while another 53 were wounded. In mourning of the terrible incident, President Obama stated, “This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well” (Nation). This quote holds true in the reality of how far society has come. Nowadays, we just hope for the best; that there won’t be a shooting tomorrow. To further demonstrate this example, the poem reads “Ever since 2008, Obama has been on the debate. ‘Essentially have two realities’: one is tradition, the other is fatalities” (Power Poetry). As a nation, we must unite together to diminish this issue because that is not the society we want to live in, where mass shootings occur so frequently that you know people who were affected. Gun control has been proven to be effective. According to other countries, tougher gun laws keep the number of deaths down. For example, in Australia, there were 13 mass shootings between 1979 and 1996. After a gunman killed 35 people in 1996, they passed some restrictions on weapons and there has not been a mass shooting since that incident, two decades ago (Junior Scholastic). There is proof that these regulations work, yet we still haven’t done anything about it. It has gotten to the point that questions being asked are “...would you like guns to symbolize the USA?” (Power Poetry). What happened to our common sense?

There are only three main restrictions that the gun control advocates are trying to set up; “background checks for buyers, laws regulating who can carry weapons in public, and the kinds of guns that are available for purchase” (Junior Scholastic). When you see these regulations, you should ask yourself, “Why haven’t we put these up in the past. Look at what our country has come to because of it”. It has gotten to the point where some people have such heinous mentalities that they think, “Well, if I’m going down, I’m going to bring other people with me”, and they go out on a mass murder, ultimately killing themselves or getting killed. That is scary to think about. Obviously, this country is all about giving the people their rights and not taking them away, but to what extent are we willing to protect those rights. When anyone can walk into a gun store and purchase assault weapons, how is anyone supposed to know what they are capable of. People will do anything for their own benefit, which is frightening because in a society like today’s, there are loopholes around many things. It is imperative for gun control to be given a chance.

This issue is one of the most controversial issues for a reason. It is very serious and both sides are technically correct. We must put the future for this country first, rather than worrying about one of the rights we were granted as citizens of this country 230 years ago. Gun control is a necessity to begin reducing the amount of terrible, mass shootings that are occurring in this country. Reading the poem “Don’t Make No Sense” will make you stop and think just how serious this matter is. Just remember what President Obama said after the shooting in Orlando and think twice about whether you would rather protect our society or just think you are protecting your individual rights. In the end, these regulations aren’t violating the second amendment. 
