Brooks

Jerian Brooks
Ms. Sipin
English 110C
3/27/2015
Guns a right or a curse
The world today is a place with many great and beautiful things. However, where
there is beauty, there is also ugliness. Over the last decade, schools have been terribly
victimized by the horrible epidemic of school shootings. Countless individuals, young
and old, have lost their lives due to these tragic incidents. These incidents are caused by
criminals who are using heavy firepower and abusing their civil rights. America is a
great country and we should have regulations and restrictions when these fire arms come
into play. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who do not want these regulations.
These individuals state they have the right to bear arms as outlined in the second
amendment of the Constitution, which is the founding document of our country. While
we may strongly agree that Americans have civil rights to own or use a firearm of their
choice, one should understand that every firearm should have restrictions on gun
ownership. Obviously we have gun laws in place today but it should be updated in order
to protect people, and epically children of all ages. The question we may ask is simple
but it remains complex for some individuals. Simply stated, should there be another
amendment that would restrict the use and ownership of guns in American. The answer is
yes as it would without a doubt reduce the number of innocent lives lost each year due to
gun incident.

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During the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s, a number of states passed Child
Access Prevention or the CAP laws in an attempt to reduce gun-related accidents,
suicides, and crime among American youths. The national rate of firearm-related deaths
among children under the age of seventeen was extremely high in the 1990s, reaching at a
rate of four point eight per hundred thousand youths in 1993, with over three thousand
deaths. These numbers eventually have fallen steadily over time. However, the way of
owning and purchasing guns still is not closely monitored enough. For example, twentyyear old Adam Lanza, a crazed psychopath, shot and murdered twenty school children
and six staff adults on December 14, 2012. This incident was probable the worst school
shooting in history, but it help America provide a sense of change. Schoolviolenceis
somethingthatwillcontinuetoexist.Butthatdoesntmeanthatschooladministrators,
faculty,andstaffcandonothingtocurbit.Therearestillproactivethingstokeepitfrom
happening.Thispaperdiscussedatleastsixhomegrownstrategies(Redlener,2006)
andatleastthreeschoolmanagementbasedprograms(Snell&Volokh,2005)thatcanbe
usedtomakeourschoolssaferwithoutmakingourschoolsarmedcampsorresortingto
uselessshooterprofiles.(DUPLECHAIN, ROSALIND, and ROBERT MORRIS
pg.7).
TodaygunlawshavebeenahottopicfortheUnitedStatesformanyyears.There
arenotmanysolutionstogunviolence.However,manyorganizationstrytocurbthese
problems.Forexample,theCAP laws hold the gun owner responsible if a child gains
access to a gun. However, owners are typically liable if the gun is loaded while in other
states, if an injury occurred. The penalty for violating this law is usually a misdemeanor.
In other states it is represented as a felony if someone is injured or the gun holds large

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capacity of ammunition, such as a sub-machine gun. Thus two types of CAP laws are
classified regarding negligent storage and reckless provision to children. The negligent
storage laws are considered to be more strict than most. Further more, provision laws on
the other hand prohibit adults from intentionally, knowingly and or recklessly providing
some or all firearms to children. These laws vary according to the different types of gun
under review and whether or not if the gun was loaded.
The intention of CAP laws is to make guns inaccessible to children while still
maintaining accessibility to adults. The reduction in accidental shootings and suicides
among children would decrease from the reduced access to firearms. The reduction in
intentional shootings might decrease as well from a reduction in gun thefts, as thieves
would find it more difficult to steal a securely stored gun. In most crimes, a large
proportion of stolen guns are used in these heinous acts. Thus this situation is a one of
self-defense, where fatalities could rise if a victim's gun is not readily accessible because
of storage issues.
The National Rifle Association of America, or the NRA, is a nonprofit
organization whose members advocate for the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms
was founded in 1871. The founders of the organization were two Civil War veterans. It
was originally formed to promote rifle shooting for scientific purposes. Today, the NRA
objectives involve teaching firearm skills and safety as well as advocating gun rights.
Like most special organizations, the NRA also publishes several monthly magazines and
sponsors a number of competitive shooting events each year. Most American lawmakers
consider the organization to be one of the most powerful associations in the country.

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The NRA strongly supports the Second Amendment. The organization strives to
ensure guns are available to all the citizens of the United States. Unfortunately, the
association has been the subject of various criticisms in the past, particularly for its
affiliations with well-known high-profile politicians and the gun manufacturing industry.
Some critics have accused the NRA of being bias toward those who provide an enormous
amount of funding for its activities. The organization has also been criticized for
providing financial backing for political candidates who support the objectives of the
Second Amendment. The organizations Political Victory Fund assigns grades while
providing endorsements to politicians who have a solid pro-firearms voting record.
TherearecountlessillegalbusinessesrunningintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.
Oneofthemostdangerousoftheseoperationsisguntrafficking.Oversixtymillionguns
havebeensmuggledintotheworldeveryyear.Gunsareusedtostartwarsandtheyoften
supportterrorism."Whatsnotwellknownisthatthevastmajorityoftheapproximately
12,000annualgunmurdersand66,000nonfatalshootingsarecommittedbypeoplewho
havenolegalrighttoagun."(NationGunVictims).Whatisevenmoretragicisthat
localandneighborhoodgangscanalsohaveaccesstotheseillegalfirearms.
Thereisonecommonsourcethatattractshugecrowdsofcriminalstoone
location.ThissourceiscommonlyknownasaGunShow.Duetoaloopholeinthe
federallawmanygunshowemployees,manyofwhomworkoutsideoftheseevents,sell
unlicensedfirearmstoprivatesellers.Theseuncheckedtransactionsaremostlyalways
donewithoutcriminalbackgroundchecksbecausethesebuyersdon'trequireit.

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Duetoboththelackofresponsibility,andthepoornatureofunsupervisedgun
violence,thereareacoupleofsolutionsthatwouldhelpremedytheproblem.First,
Americaneedstopreventtheabuseofdomesticgunviolencehomicides.Prohibiting
couplesorspouseswhohavecriminalrecordsoranabusivedrugaddiction,fromhaving
gunaccessisasmartmove.Thiswilllowerunnecessarydeathsandhelpsreducethe
spreadofgunviolence.Thesecondmoveistostrengthenourpoliciesandpenaltieson
gunownership.Thepenaltiesthatserveinourcurrentgunlawsaretoolightofa
sentenceandhavemanyloopholesthatcriminalscanavoid.
Finally,theimportantthingistoexpandandincreaseournationalbackground
checks.Thisactionwillhelpidentifypeoplewhoareunfitormentallyunstablebefore
theybuyorownagun.TheNationalInstantCriminalBackgroundSystem,orNICS,
mayhaveputastopofanactualgunsaleuseformorethanovertwomillionpeople,but
somestatesdon'tusethissystem.ElevenstatesandtheDistrictofColumbiahaveno
backgroundreportswhenitcomesgunsales.Alsoatleasttwelvestateshavefewerthan
ahundredreportsfortheNICSdatabase.ImprovingtheusageoftheNICSsystemwill
helptoreducepotentialgunviolenceenormously.
Americaformanygenerationshasbeenanidealcountrythatwantsnothingmorethanto
establishpeace.However,thatpeaceAmericatriestoestablishhasbeenbrokenon
numerousoccasionseitherduetowarorunresolvedpoliticalissues.Ithasbeensaidby
manyscientistthathumansalwayswillhaveaviolentnaturethatcantbecontrolled.
However,countlesspeoplefromourownhistorychallengetheseidealsinordertobring
peace.TheReformationforexamplewasstartedbyamannamedMartinLutherwho
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challengedtheholyCatholicChurchanditsmethods.Thepeopletodayhavethe
capacitytostartarevolutionarychangeoftheirown,butwhatisneededisforsomeone
totakethefirststep.Inconclusion,thoughtherearemanyorganizationsthathelptostop
gunviolenceacrossAmerica,itisessentialthatthesesponsorsdoitright.Everythingin
theworldcanbeimprovedupon,sowhynotimproveoursenseofsecurity.Ifpeoplecan
pullthemselvestogether,wecanputanendtogunviolence.

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Annotated Bibliography
DUPLECHAIN, ROSALIND, and ROBERT MORRIS. "School Violence:
Reported School Shootings And Making Schools Safer." Education 135.2
(2014): 145-150. Education Research Complete. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
This citation is a valuable as it gives compelling information. This resource is important
as it gives evidence to school violence. This will source will give ideas to compare
certain situations.
Caffrey, Cait. "National Rifle Association (NRA)." Salem Press
Encyclopedia (2015): Research Starters. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
This source is incredibly helpful. This source gives entire information
about the NRA. This source will help me to give understanding about
NRA and its hidden motives.
Koper, Christopher. "Crime Gun Risk Factors: Buyer, Seller, Firearm,
And Transaction Characteristics Associated With Gun Trafficking And
Criminal Gun Use." Journal Of Quantitative Criminology 30.2 (2014):
285-315. Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
This article gives information about the horrors of gun trafficking. This
source will help me give mathematical information on how bad gun
trafficking is. This will help expand my paper.
McDougal, Topher L., et al. "The Way Of The Gun: Estimating Firearms
Trafficking Across The USMexico Border." Journal Of Economic
Geography 15.2 (2015): 297-327. Business Source Complete. Web. 17
Apr. 2015.
This article gives accurate historical and personal experience of
ownership of a gun. This source will help understand the psychically
attractiveness of a gun. This will give great depth to my paper.

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Metzl, Jonathan, M., and Kenneth, T. MacLeish. "Mental Illness, Mass
Shootings, And The Politics Of American Firearms." American Journal Of
Public Health 105.2 (2015): 240-249. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web.
17 Apr. 2015.
This article is not as helpful as the others. This article may give clues
of how mental illness affect a person, but does not compare it to gun
ownership. This article is not helpful.
DUPLECHAIN, ROSALIND, and ROBERT MORRIS. "School Violence:
Reported School Shootings And Making Schools Safer." Education 135.2
(2014): 145-150. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
This article is about gun violence. However, this article lacks info on
school shootings. I would reckon a different article.
https://gunvictimsaction.org/fact-sheet/fact-sheet-illegal-gun-trafficking-arms-criminalsand-youth/

http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/learn/stopping-gun-trafficking/