One of the most controversial issues in the US today is the debate between gun control and gun rights. It was one of the large topics of the 2016 presidential election. Many shootings and their media coverage have created the large dispute on US gun control policies. In addition to this, the US is expected to have more guns than citizens in 2017. More citizens are becoming gun owners each day. Since guns are more common now than ever before in our country’s history, we have to create policies that will ensure that are citizens are safe. To create this policy, it is important that people understand our current state laws and how they vary from state to state. We also must identify some of the laws passed at the federal level. Then we can examine all of these laws and create and effective solution. In addition to checking laws it is also important to review shootings that have happened recently and how they could’ve been prevented with different policies. After analyzing all of these issues we can solve the question of, “What is the best way to deal with guns in the US”. 

One thing that is forgotten is this debate about guns is the reason we have them in the first place. The second amendment gives US citizens the right to bear arms. One common argument against this is that when this was written our technology with guns was very different. In 1776 the US military armed themselves with guns like the musket. This gun could only fire one shot and reloading took around twenty seconds. This was the same gun that the citizens of the US used. People also were able to purchase canons under the second amendment and many did (Holst). The original intent of the second amendment was to give citizens the same firepower as the government. After over two hundred years of change our country has changed a lot. Many people think that guns should be banned completely because they are too powerful compared to what they were like hundreds of years ago. This idea is inconsistent because of how we evaluate other amendments today versus when our country was first established. One example is how the US still honors the first amendment, but adds exceptions to it. Citizens aren’t allowed to send death threats or cause panics by screaming “bomb” in an open area. Along with this we have had acts like the Espionage and Seditions acts which banned speech criticizing the US during times of war. Even with these acts we still honor free speech today. This is how the gun control issue should be approached. Citizens shouldn’t have access to the fully automatic assault rifles carried by soldiers or have access to tanks, but they still should have the right to bear certain arms. 

People also forget the intent of the second amendment. It was designed to avoid a tyrannical government. Most people think this idea is silly and not relevant today. Although it is unlikely in the US, tyrannical government are an issue that have developed relatively recently. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the late nineteen thirty’s is the most recent example. One of the first acts of the party was to take away the guns of its citizens. At first this seemed harmless, but near the end of world war two is was discovered that the Nazi’s took advantage of their defenseless people and committed terrible crimes to the Jewish population. After disarming the Jews of Europe, the Nazi party was able to bring them to concentration camps and death camps. In the end six million defenseless Jews were killed. Had they been armed, they would’ve been able to resist against these war crimes. Although this may seem like a long time ago, many millennials have relatives that were alive during the second world war. The right to bear arms is the right to resist against tyranny and it gives power to the citizens of the country to both defend themselves and resist the government if needed. 

Aside from this history of guns, today the largest problem with the gun control debate is the lack of knowledge on current gun laws. This issue mainly stems from the fact that state laws vary by a large margin. An example of this is evident in the disparity between states like Arizona and New York. Arizona doesn’t require you to have a license for concealed carry and states like New York require you to take a test before getting a concealed carry license (Tarr). Some things do remain consistent throughout our states. Before purchasing a gun, everyone legally must get a background check. While purchasing a gun owner, which is usually the gun store, must have the buyer fill out a 4473 form which documents the purchase of the weapon. One of the common beliefs of our gun purchasing system is that when you buy a gun it is “registered” under your name. This is a widespread belief from those who have never purchased a firearm. The system of a background check and a 4473 form makes sure that the buyer should be allowed to own a gun and documentation that the buyer is the legal owner of a gun. After the gun is purchased it can be sold through private purchases within the state. Another large problem are the terms “fully-automatic” and “semi-automatic”. With weapons like the AR-15 many news outlets have poorly represented this gun by calling it “fully-automatic”. This means that the gun is able to fire as many rounds as possible at a high rate of fire with only one squeeze of the trigger. Fully-automatic guns are highly regulated and are no longer produced for private use unless an individual owns a class 3 license, which requires many years of background checks and red tape to prevent you from accessing this. Sporting rifles like the AR-15 are semi-automatic, which means they can only fire a single bullet per squeeze of the trigger. This means they have a significantly lower rate of fire. It is important to know the gun laws of whatever state an individual lives in so they know theirs rights and the rights of their neighbors. 

Many people believe that our current gun laws are too loose and that a complete ban in necessary. It is understandable that some people may want a gun ban. The only problem would be putting this plan into law. It would be nearly impossible to locate and confiscate guns from criminals that have illegally purchased a firearm. After the ban, the law abiding citizens would be defenseless while criminals would still be able to use guns. The idea of a ban is backed by incidents like shootings covered by the news. Many countries like England and Australia have attempted this. The only problem would be enforcing this law. The US now has more guns in it than people. Trying to remove hundreds of millions of guns would be nearly impossible. Guns that were purchased legally would be easy to find through forms of purchase at guns stores. The problem would arise from illegal purchases from criminals. Private purchases from across states are illegal and would be impossible to track. In the end the people who were legal firearms owners would be punished while the criminals would gain power. 

Aside from criminal activity, some people worry about the extent to which firearm ownership should be allowed. Many believe that we should ban “assault weapons” like the AR-15. Although it is not well-known, there have already been laws passed to attempt to restrict these guns. In 1994 an Assault weapons ban was put in place under our former president Bill Clinton. These laws tried to limit the types of assault weapons that were allowed for public ownership. With some of the guns available today it is perfectly reasonable to make some restrictions on assault weapons so that they are not too powerful. The laws that congress created did not fulfill this. When we think of the main differences between semi-automatic guns like the AR-15 and bolt action rifles used for traditional hunting like the Remington 700, the magazine size and the rate of fire are the two that stand out the most. A person who understands guns that wants to restrict their power would go to these features first. The bill ignored both. It instead focused on features that had little impact of the firing mechanism. The bill involved, “A collapsible stock does not make a rifle more deadly. Nor does a pistol grip. Nor does a bayonet mount. Nor does a flash suppressor. And for heaven’s sake, good luck finding, let alone purchasing, 40mm explosive grenades for your rifle-mounted grenade launcher” (Davis).  To make a long story short, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was a wasted opportunity to put in effective laws to restrict assault rifles. The law expired in 2004 and the issue was dropped because of the lawmakers embarrassing attempt. To avoid deadly incidents like the shootings we see in the news, laws need to be put in place to restrict the magazine capacity of guns. A gun’s rate of fire is limited to the amount of bullets put into a magazine. If magazine capacities are limited to around ten bullets, which about how many are in most pistol magazines, the shooter has to reload more and therefore can’t fire as many shots at once. This would help prevent devastating events like the Orlando shooting in which the shooter had a high capacity magazine.

On June 12th, 2016 Omar Mateen went into an Orlando night club and in an act of terror killed 49 people. The reason the shooter was able to kill so many was the magazine. Everything that Omar purchased was done so legally. Many see this as a reason to ban all assault weapons. Omar was armed with a Sig Sauer MCX semiautomatic. This is a downgraded version of the military version of this gun. Some of the downgrades include the switch to semi-automatic, the removal of the silencer, and the replacement of the barrel. This makes the gun have a lower fire rate, have a louder sound, and have a shorter range respectively (Hauer). The problem was that Omar’s gun had a magazine that could hold hundreds of rounds, not the gun itself. If there was a law put in place that restricted how many shots he could’ve fired before having to reload the gun, many lives could’ve been saved. 

One problem after this incident was the ignorance of the media. The main culprit of this was Rep. Alan Grayson from Florida who infamously said after the shooting,” if he was not able to buy a weapon that shoots of seven hundred rounds in a minute, a lot of those people would still be alive” (Ernst). Grayson either had absolutely no clue what he was talking about or was deliberately lying in order to persuade those who know little about guns. The US military for years used the M-16 which was able to over fire three thousand rounds per minute. At first glance the AR-15 and the M-16 look almost identical. This leads to the public/media seeing the AR-15 as a menacing gun even though it is only semi-automatic. Statements like Grayson made are constantly highlighted after shootings and people believe false claims about guns. It is more beneficial for people to hear the facts about guns used in these shootings and then draw their own conclusions than to accept lies. To prevent false ideas about guns the media needs to accurately present the capability of certain firearms so people can come to reasonable conclusions about how to control them. 

Once people understand the true power of certain firearms, they should researchthe stories of guns successfully used for self-defense. Guns are becoming more popular in the US. After shootings like the one in Orlando, many gun store owners are actively trying to help their community gain access to guns. This is why most Americans have guns in the first place. The Pink Pistol shooting club opened up weeks after the Orlando shooting. This is a gay-friendly shooting club that encourage members of the LGBT community purchase guns and gives gun safety lessons to those affected by the Orlando shooting. After two weeks it had almost four thousand members. After an overall increase in firearm ownership, there are estimates of there being hundreds of thousands of people ever year who have used guns to successfully defend themselves from those who wish to cause them harm in the US. (Bird). In a news system which focuses of ratings, these stories are almost never told. Chis Bird’s “Thank God I Had a Gun” is a collection of sixteen different stories in which people used guns to protect themselves from criminals. Bird uses police reports along with interviews with people involved with the incidents. His evidence shows when the public arms itself our society becomes safer.

Although there is evidence that shows communities are safer with guns, people who support gun control point to the fact that the US has some of the highest gun crime out of industrialized countries. This statistic is true, but also misleading. Based on a study from the Center for Disease Control news in 2013 the US had close to four out of every hundred thousand people killed by a gun. This number has been dropping quickly since the late ninety’s and is continuing to drop today. CNS News compared this to the raising number of gun ownership in the US. There is a strong negative correlation between the two statistics (Perry). As more and more people are arming themselves criminals have less of an opportunity to kill because of the fear of getting killed themselves. This point is exemplified in Kennesaw, Georgia. An ordinance was passed in 1982 that required every home to possess a gun. The town went twenty-five years without a single murder since the law was passed. Crime has gone down since the law was passed and the population of the city has grown six times as large as when the law was originally passed. In Morton Grove, Illinois the US’s first gun ban was passed. Following the passage of the law, gun crime went up fifteen percent while crime in general only rose by three percent. Although there are some extra variables in these studies, these two extremes demonstrate that gun bans aren’t effective and prove that gun ownership helps keep innocent people safe.  

In the US it is necessary to allow people to right the bear arms. A country that allows its people to bear arms will have citizens able to defend themselves from those who wish to hurt them. The only question is when do guns become too powerful? Pistols and shotguns are the two most common guns for home defense. These guns are a necessity for families that wish to bear arms. Long-range hunting rifles are also common for those who wish to hunt game, and they are rarely thought of as too powerful for public use. The line should be drawn at fully automatic guns. Under our current system, fully automatic guns of any kind are not allowed for the public except under very rare circumstances where an individual receives a certain license. This includes fully-automatic pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Since this ban was made there have been no shootings with an individual using a fully automatic weapon. The success of this law created means that it should still be in use today. The controversy comes with semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. This is less powerful than the similar M-16 rifle, which is its fully automatic counterpart in the military. Because of the AR-15’s reduced rate of fire and shorter barrel, which makes it significantly less accurate, the gun should be permitted for public use. The only problem with semi-automatic guns is potential for an extended magazine. As seen in the Orlando shooting this can cause hundreds of deaths and injuries in a small amount of time. Extended magazines should be put into the same list as fully automatic weapons, making them hard to access. This will prevent the shootings that we see in the news. In addition to this, laws that control things like concealed carry should be governed at the state level. Different states have different populations and needs for its people to be safe under the second amendment. If these laws are passed then the US will be a safer place.
