By Anthony Rock, Carson Carrell, and TJ Wise
It is late at night and you are about to go to bed. You lay down and hear footsteps. They get louder and you hear the floor creak. A person is in your house. You go to your drawer and grab your pistol out of the bottom drawer. Guns, pistols, rifles, and muskets. Whatever you call guns, they all serve one main purpose. To protect yourself and provide a sense of safety.
Recently we have been hearing about protests regarding the current accessibility to weapons in this country. We’ve heard this regarding the presidential candidates and what it would mean for our right to guns if one of them was to be elected. One side is afraid of their guns being taken away and the other is afraid that gun laws are not enforced strictly enough. With this being said, what exactly is gun control?
Gun control is one of those topics where everybody has a different opinion. Your surroundings and environment both influence your opinions on guns. If you live in the South or are a hunter then you most likely will have a love for guns. The military, hunters and police typically have a good understanding of guns and know how to use them appropriately. If you are a younger kid or have a mental illness then you might not understand the danger of using a gun. Some people say that guns are used for protection and self-defense which is originally why the second amendment was written. Now some people are saying that guns are the only reason in this country that there are school shootings and massacres. People have also been blaming cops for shooting suspects when all they are doing is shooting in self defence. It’s their job is to keep law and order in the streets.
We are okay with gun control to a certain extent. We feel that background checks are necessary and age restrictions should be enforced. At the same time, the right to bear arms is a very important part of our constitution and cannot be taken away. Guns are a safety blanket for when you are in danger. They allow people to hunt and enjoy nature. They allow people to escape from reality; whether that be in nature or at a shooting range. Guns allow people to connect and bond with each other. Guns are like a shield — they protect us.
Guns don’t shoot… humans do.
Gun control is an issue that influenced voters in the recent election. Republicans were afraid that Biden would take away their guns. Biden’s campaign website talks about his plans for gun control. It mentions banning the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Personally, we believe that Biden’s administration if elected will not take away their guns because he hasn’t done it for the 47 years he has been in politics. That being said if the House and Senate are split there isn’t much he can do. His plan also includes only selling “smart guns”. These guns are fired only with the fingerprint of the owner. It sounds like a cool idea, but what if somebody in your family needs to use a gun and they can’t because their fingerprint doesn’t match? Also technology doesn’t always work the way we want it to, which could lead to problems and glitches. “…what good could it possibly do to disarm the working class”(Kelly, 2020, para 8). Biden’s plan affects the working class by making it more expensive to own guns. His plan is to make it mandatory for a registration fee of $200 per gun. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up for people who own multiple firearms. “Those who violate the NFA will also face up to 10 years in federal prison, and a potential $10,000 fine” (Kelly, 2020, para 3). Disarming the working class is not going to end gun violence. Although taking away guns has helped stop mass shootings; it also takes away a fundamental right from our Bill of Rights. Guns are a big part of our American history and play a major role in the world around us.
Growing up I was also taught about gun safety by my dad who was in the FBI. We would go to shooting ranges and shoot the weapons that he had because he thought it was important for us to know gun safety and what guns are for. Sometimes the reason people are so scared of guns is that they never grew up with someone who taught them about guns. It is like how some people, myself included, look at mayonnaise and say “I don’t like mayo.” People say that not because they have tried it though, it is because they think it looks gross. But sometimes when people finally taste it, they love it and want to put it on every sandwich they make. That is one of the reasons people do not like guns — they do not even know what a gun is or how it works, they are just assuming off of what they see in violent movies or what the news says.
So what would making guns illegal even do? Well let me ask you this first; what did making weed and other drugs illegal do? If you don’t know the answer I’ll help you out. It took it out of the hands of people who abide by the laws and try to stay on the right path however, the people that disobey the law managed to get the drugs because there is no way the government could put a complete stop to it. This is exactly what would happen if we made guns illegal — actually, it would be much worse. It would take the guns out of the hands of people that care about this country and the well-being of its citizens. The criminals who want to use weapons to commit homicide and cause mass amounts of killings would still find a way to access these guns that are illegal. If that happened there would be no one left to help when there is an armed robbery or someone’s life is at risk.
Gun control is a very controversial topic. For some people, guns are viewed as a necessity that is needed to protect yourself and the people around you. For others having a gun is a sin. They view guns as dangerous and violent. Honestly, I could see why; over the past few years in the United States there have been countless amounts of shootings and mass killings that have affected people across the country. Let’s go back in time to revisit a day that changed many lives forever. You and your family went on vacation to Las Vegas for the weekend. It was a nice evening so you decided to go to an outdoor music festival. Imagine you are enjoying the festival, having a great time then all of a sudden you hear a loud bang… Then another bang… And another bang… According to the article Victims and Relatives of the Las Vegas Strip Mass Shooting over 22,000 people attended the festival. Fifty-eight people died at this festival and over four thousand and four hundred more people were affected by the loss of a brother, sister, friend, or other close relatives. In total that is about 27,000 people whose lives will now forever be changed because one person had a gun and pulled the trigger. This is the problem with guns. It gives someone that has bad intentions a chance to act on those intentions and not only affects the immediate 27,000 that were directly related to the disaster but affects the whole country and changes people’s views towards guns.
That being said there are consequences with a lot of things we have in this world. Look at cars for instance. They help people get from place to place, but they can be dangerous if not handled correctly. Car accidents happen everyday. According to the Association For Safe International Road Travel 1.35 million people die from car accidents each year. As stated by Pew Research Center 39,773 people died from a gun related injury in 2017. This is the most recent year where they were able to get complete data. This shows that there is a danger with every man-manufactured thing. Cars don’t just crash, it is the person behind the wheel that crashes the car. It is the same exact way with guns. You don’t take cars away from responsible drives just like you shouldn’t take guns away from responsible gun owners. The research shows that car accidents are more fatal than gun related injuries. Why don’t we protest about taking cars away?
I think another issue is people don’t know exactly how to interpret the 2nd Amendment which states that all men and women have the right to bear arms. If it gives us the right to bear arms then why can’t we own a rocket launcher? It does not state the limitations of what kind of guns we are allowed to own. Why are there no protests about owning outrageous guns like that?
Another point is that when they wrote the 2nd Amendment guns were drastically different than the ones we had now. If we still had muskets that take an extended amount of time to reload just for one-shot then killers would not be able to pull off mass shootings — it would be impossible. So this raises the question that maybe it is time that limitations should be put on the 2nd amendment.
There have been many debates as to what to do about gun control. In Virginia, there have been riots by people who feel that their right to have a gun is being infringed upon. Julia Glenn who is a handicapped elderly woman from Virginia says “I am a single woman, I live by myself. How am I going to protect myself? I’m also handicapped, so if someone were to attempt to attack me, I would be defenseless”(Shaw, 2020, para 13). This is why guns are important; they help us to defend and protect ourselves. If it wasn’t for guns, the United States would not exist today. Without guns, we would all be paying our insanely high taxes to Britain or living with the British soldiers. Without guns, we would not have been able to fight with Great Britain and ultimately win to gain freedom.
Not everybody is jacked like the Rock; they need different types of guns for protection.
In our lifetime there have been lots of shootings and mass killings. My dad has always told me “The problem is not the gun, it’s the person with the gun.” I have always believed that because it is very true. Guns are not meant to be toys for people to use and abuse. Guns are a tool that provide protection. Guns help us to protect ourselves against potential dangers. They can be used to hunt so that you can just escape your daily stresses of life and they allow us to spend quality time with our families.
Guns provide protection whenever it may be needed.
The collaborative Op-Ed above was written by Nordonia High School seniors enrolled in College Writing 1, a dual-enrollment course with college credit awarded through Kent State University. The views expressed are of the students and not necessarily of Nordonia High School.
References
Biden’s gun control plan is terrible for working class firearm owners. (2020, July 16). Washingtonpost.com, NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A629676999/OVIC?u=lnoca_nordonia&sid=OVIC&xid=aee4e151
Joe Biden’s Plan to End Gun Violence: Joe Biden for President. (2020, October 12). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/
Press, A. (2020, October 01). Victims and relatives of Las Vegas Strip mass shooting to receive $800m settlement. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/30/las-vegas-strip-shooting-800m-settlement
Shaw, C. M. (2020, February 17). SAVING THE SECOND AMENDMENT: Virginia has become the battleground for Second Amendment rights, as its Democratic majority wants to strip citizens of guns, but the people are fighting back–peacefully. The New American, 36(4), 10+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A617090908/GPS?u=lnoca_nordonia&sid=GPS&xid=b5281501
