Will Yu, Sartell
First off, I am no NRA member, no extremist, nor ignorant, I just feel obligated to argue what was written by Dennis Dalman. According to Lawrence Hunter (chairman of Revolution PAC) on the Second Amendment, he stated, “The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.”
Second off, having strict gun laws like in Mexico won’t work. In 2012 there were 6,490 guns sold from a single gun store, yet there were 15 million on the streets. If guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns. In fact, the FBI says that the majority of gun murders were used by handguns (64 percent) and only 4 percent of gun murders were caused by rifles aka “assault weapons.”
If the idea of banning the 4 percent would be to stop murder, there would a ban on all guns. Does the gang violence in Chicago with handguns not matter as much as the victims in school shootings from rifles? Besides, 94 percent of mass public shootings happen in gun-free zones. Furthermore, people are 4.3 times more likely to be murdered with knives than guns (FBI, 2016). Additionally, guns do save lives being used 2.5 million times a year for self defense. Also, guns were only responsible for 1.3 percent of deaths between 1999-2013, with the US only 28th in international homicide rates. People are 21.5 times more likely to die of heart disease.
Moreover, gun control efforts have proven not to work. Lancet study on March 10, 2016, shows that most of the state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun rate deaths. Lastly, only a majority of 64 percent of total mass shootings were by white males with African Americans in second with 19 percent, Latinos 10 percent, and Asians, 8 percent, etc. between 1982 – August 2019. In conclusion, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
