Gun Control: The Pros and Cons of Our Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Gun Control: the Pros and Cons of Our

Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms

It seems that every time you turn on the television in the past few years, gun violence is one of the most reported topics. With the tragedies of the theatre shooting at the Batman movie opening, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, MIT, and Sandy Hook Elementary fresh on the minds of the public it is easy for the media to blame guns. There is very little said about the actual assailant and more focus put on the type of gun they used. The media wants the public to think that "people don't kill people, guns kill people". This paper will show that gun control is not the answer to stopping gun violence, rather more armed personnel and tighter security would be a stronger deterrent.

Among the assailants of these tragedies there is one prevailing commonality. They all had some form of mental illness. This would lead people to think that strong gun laws and tighter restrictions on the type of guns that are sold would reduce the ability for these mentally ill people to get a gun. "Dr. John Lott has written that: ‘There is no real scientific evidence among criminologists and economists that background checks actually reduce crime.' But better parenting and a more loving society that proactively addresses depression could potentially reduce violent crime" (Kieffer 1). Instead of focusing on the perpetrator and what would cause him to commit such a horrendous act, the media reports on the type of gun used in the shooting, and how many rounds were fired. As macabre as this sounds, pay attention to the news reports and you will see that only a small amount of focus is put on the gunman, and more is put on the gun.

The problems our society faces do not come from guns. Owning a gun, a knife or a baseball bat will not turn you into a mass murderer. But a sick conscience or a mental illness can. Every young man who committed mass murder over the last few years has been mentally ill. More gun control laws will not stop mentally ill people from acting irrationally. By definition, irrational people do not do ‘rational' things, like follow laws (Kieffer 1).

If our government really wanted to stop gun violence, it would focus more on education, and providing help for those students who show signs of depression and mental illness. Addressing these indicators at a younger age would increase the likelihood that their problems could be addressed and prevented through counseling or a medical medium. Unfortunately this is not how the media wants us to think because it is following an anti gun agenda of the current administration. They want you to blame the guns, so that taking them away from you will be easier.

This leads us to the use of props to convince the American people to give up their rights because of the exploitation of the emotion