Are current gun restrictions tough enough?
PRO
BENJAMIN YOUNG
Staff Writer
Last week, two former Malibu High School students brought handguns to campus, and in the process, woke the dragon that is the gun control debate. This particular debate is not one that stays at the forefront of the American conscience like, say, the abortion and immigration debates. It returns to the limelight after an incident such as this most recent one and then promptly disappears into the cesspool of semi-relevant American thought. Should gun control stay on the fringe of both American political and social thought? No. Simply put, the stakes are too high.
The issue is quiet simple: Guns do not contribute anything positive to a civilized society. It is important to slightly qualify that statement. I understand that there are still people in these United States who purchase guns for legitimate reasons and practice gun safety and who would never break the law or injure another person with a firearm.
My qualm is with the fact that someone can still buy an AR-15 automatic rifle and put 50 bullets into someone in under 20 seconds.
My qualm is with the fact that the United States leads the developed world in the total number of gun deaths per year (29,573) according to a study published by the CDC National Center for Health Statistics in 2004. Apart from a war zone, only Colombia and Russia come close to equaling those numbers.
My qualm is with the fact that illegal weapons are flooding the gray and black markets in the United States and that basically anyone with a couple of hundred bucks can get one.
My qualm is with the fact that they are constitutionally protected predators out there who buy guns legally, then sell or give them to kids.
Sadly, America is a gun culture through and through to the core. It is time for that to change.
According to the Constit-ution, we, citizens of the United States, have the right to bear arms. Most of us forget that caveat the right springs from the original idea of having (and I quote the Bill of Rights) a “well-regulated militia.” It was never the framers’ idea that Americans run around toting guns simply because they could. In 2005, we have no need for militias.
In 1998, there were 11,789 gun homicides in the United States. The same year, there were 373 gun homicides in Germany — second most, behind the United States, for industrialized countries, in which Russia and Colombia are not included. Factoring in population difference paints a grim picture. In Germany, there is one gun homicide per 220,995 people, while in the United States that number stands at one per 25,085 people.
Perhaps more grim are the statistics regarding gun use in homes. Remember, most people claim to keep guns for self-defense – sadly, the numbers tell a different story.
According to a report from the Journal of Trauma released August 1998, “A gun in the home is four times more likely to be involved in an unintentional shooting, seven times more likely to be used to commit a criminal assault or homicide and 11 times more likely to be used to attempt or commit suicide than to be used in self-defense.”
As bad as the situation is though, there is still hope. California’s gun laws are among the nation’s toughest. They could, however, be tougher. Imposing stricter regulations on who exactly buys and sells weapons would improve the situation.
It is unrealistic for those in my camp to hope to see guns being made illegal anytime soon — the gun lobby is among Washington’s most powerful.
It is realistic though to push for tighter control. What is the harm anyway? If a person wants to purchase a weapon for legitimate reasons, he or she should not protest to a longer waiting period, more strict background checks and a new tax to discourage gun trade. As the cost of buying a weapon gets higher, it naturally weeds out those who would buy for the wrong reason.
Those who submit to the tighter controls should understand that they are helping to make the nation safer for all of us. The Japanese have the tightest gun control laws and lowest gun death rate in the world — we would be remiss to ignore their example.
CON
LAURA JOHNSON
Contributing Writer
Guns are great. Guns are lovely. Yeah guns! Actually, I myself have never fired a gun, but I have heard that it hurts to get shot. Who knew? Here’s the thing though, I’m not completely oblivious. I believe there is a major difference between someone who owns a gun for self-protection or hunting season rather than someone who owns one for target practice — on people.
Friday, Sept. 23, at Malibu High, two former students, realizing they could no longer fight the urge to relive the glory days, decided to roll over to the school parking lot for a good time. Once there, allegedly they took out their hand guns and started talking to a student walking by. I don’t know if their intention was to hurt, scare or manipulate the student into believing they were tough guys. Whatever their reasoning, it was wrong. Clearly, no matter which side of the spectrum one is on when it comes to gun-control, we can all agree that toting guns to school should be strictly forbidden.
When incidents like this and other gun-related incidents occur, it gives gun-control activists ammunition, if you will, to tell it like it is. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) suggested in a speech a few years ago that “If you own a gun — make sure it’s locked up and stored without the ammunition. In fact, make it stored where the ammunition is stored separately.”
Clinton is trying to protect unaware youngsters from accidentally firing hand guns they find around the house. Yet, by not letting a gun be loaded in the home, the gun’s main purpose of protection is then lost. It would be rather awkward to ask a robber, “Hey, can you hold on a minute? I need to go grab some ammo.” Politicians mean well when they propose gun-safety laws, but some are just a bit unrealistic.
Currently, California state law prohibits the selling of firearms to anyone under age 18 or anyone buying a gun and then re-selling it. A standard gun purchase includes a 10-day waiting period and unless buying an assault weapon, one does not need to get a permit. None of these laws are outlandish or over the top.
Imagine if America were to implement Australian gun laws and ban them altogether, so that homicide rates would go down. But how long would it last? A 2002 Boston Globe article revealed that “since Australia’s 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51 percent, unarmed robberies by 37 percent, assaults by 24 percent and kidnapping by 43 percent. While murders fell by 3 percent, manslaughter rose by 16 percent.”
My point is, someone will always have a gun, some way, somehow. Guns can be outlawed until the cows come home, but all that will come of it is the “bad guys” will go “bang bang” and innocent pedestrians (general public) will be “dead dead.” No matter how many laws there are, breakers of these said laws are not going to wait out the 10-day trial period before they can get a gun. There will always be alternative methods.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were no guns at all? What if we could bubble wrap all the guns in the world and send them via FedEx to the moon, stars and heavens above? Congress could ignore the Second Amendment, and we could have a gun-free country for good. Then I wouldn’t even have to be writing this article. I could write about puppies, but it’s just not that simple.
Many people believe the more laws there are, the better the world will be. Really, it’s about gun safety and respect, not control. There is a way to safely use and respect a gun. There is not a way to control all guns completely. Use the laws we have and build on them. Don’t add more. However, there is a difference between having a few gun laws to protect people and having too many gun laws that end up hindering rather than helping. Guns do not cause violence. People do, and we certainly can’t get rid of them.
Guns are a necessary evil. There is evil in the world. Evil owns a handgun. We must all have the right to protect ourselves when evil strikes.
10-06-2005