Gun Control, An Idea That’s Time Has Come
As a Criminal Justice student I lean toward the gun control side of the current debate. In his Federalist Papers James Madison said, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms” (Raymond). Madison may be right about our citizens having more rights than those in other countries, but our government places too much trust in the American people. If you take away privately owned guns, it does not solve anything because doing so would consequentially create a communist or police state. Instead of taking away the guns, a better solution is to control who buys guns and for what purpose they should be used. Opponents of gun control may say that a seven-day waiting period before being able to buy a gun does nothing to help fight or prevent crime or to save lives, it is needed to keep more people from dying, to keep people from being robbed, and to keep guns out of the hands of known criminals.
There are over 283 million licensed guns in the U.S. (Herbert 1), and that does not include unregistered and illegal weapons that people own, sell to and buy from unlicensed or criminal sources. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants Americans the right to “bear arms,” but when they kill innocent people or even themselves, should all Americans have that right? More than 50% of U.S. homes own one or more guns (White 1). The question becomes: Why? It is not necessary for so many to own firearms, and have concealed weapons prepared or ready for “whenever they feel it necessary”. A huge problem that the government faces is the terrible regulating system used to verify that gun shops and the N.R.A. run a background check on every person purchasing a weapon. Unfortunately, some choose not to do so. The N.R.A. sometimes sells