President Obama is planning to present Congress with a bill that will restrict private citizens’ ability to possess firearms.
The argument is that this law will stop crimes, gun-related deaths, and to prevent shootings from happening such as the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy in Connecticut.
But by restricting weapons, crime rates would actually increase, homicides are more likely to rise and citizens will be left unprotected.
Although Obama isn’t trying to take away citizens’ right to own a gun or protect themselves, he’s proposing unnecessary background checks and outlawing assault weapons that infringes upon the 2nd Amendment.
Americans use their guns to frighten away intruders who are breaking into their homes about 498,000 times per year, according to JustFacts.com.
When gun ownership is restricted, murder and crime rates rise. In Australia, over a period of nine years after enacting stricter gun control, the violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent, according to Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics.
How many more students, mothers and fathers will be hurt once these crime rates rise? It’s inevitable that tragedies will happen and most likely, they will happen to mostly innocent people. But restricting their ability to own a weapon is a tragedy in itself.
According to aipnews.com, there was a robbery on Dec. 17, 2012, at a Shoney’s restaurant in Alabama. Two armed men with recently stolen pistols raided the restaurant.
While the men held the manager at gunpoint, a customer hiding under a table pulled a legal .45 semi-automatic pistol on the men. The customer, Thomas Glenn Terry, used his self-defense weapon to shoot and wound both men.
This one armed citizen saved an entire restaurant of innocent people. Because of him, there was no massacre and no families had to mourn the loss of their loves ones.
There are multiple news reports of crazed gunmen and horrible shootings. This makes it look like only insane people are allowed to purchase a firearm. But guns are available to everyone, and there are more sane and innocent people than the rare crazed ones.
If teachers had a firearm, they could have easily defended Sandy Hook Elementary against the 20 year-old gunman, Adam Lanza, saving the innocent lives that were taken that day.
Then the 20 young students and six teachers would still be alive and well. If anyone was armed or ready to protect themselves the outcome of this tragedy could have been much brighter.
Police were on the scene, but we shouldn’t just leave it up to them to take care of the criminals and to keep us safe. The time it takes for the police to arrive can be far too late.
The countless number of civilians and witnesses around a scene can deal with a situation right then and there instead of wasting time by waiting for the police.
Although many may argue that it was a gun in the first place that took all the lives in the Connecticut shooting, wouldn’t the determined shooter just find an alternative weapon to hurt people and take out his anger?
Lanza is described to have been a troubled young man. The problem here was his psychological problems. Maybe we should focus on a family help line and counseling instead of banning protective weapons.
We need better mental health care in the United States. In this country, it is easier to get a gun than get medical help with mental health issue.
It’s about time our government, media and society actually takes a step back and look at what really needs aid, change and banning. We need to do a better job teaching students to communicate and help each other rather than tease a depressed person, who could retaliate against classmates as we see in most school shootings.
We should stop worrying about restricting weapons that we have had for such a long time. We had countless bans on assault weapons between 1994 and 2004. Shootings have occurred regardless of these acts. We are wasting time on trying to ban something that will inevitably always be used for either harm or good.
According to foxnews.com, Washington, D.C., was anticipating an outbreak of mass crime and deaths when its gun ban was canceled. To authorities’ surprise, the crime rate plummeted, falling far below the national crime rate.
Criminals already commit illegal acts and find ways to get what they want. The criminals in the Alabama shooting stole their guns. If this law is passed, criminals will continue to find a way to get a gun.
No background check will prevent this.
A new gun law won’t prevent a shooter or a murderer from killing people. Criminals already don’t obey laws. Why would this new gun control law prove to be any different?
All this law would really do is restrict citizens’ rights to protect themselves from criminals who will always be around.
Check out the other side to gun control here: https://www.thecalifornianpaper.com/?p=4201
