Gun Control: An Unwanted Need
Emergency posters found in many classrooms across North Allegheny help students prepare in case of a crisis, such as an active shooter situation.
January 4, 2022
On November 30, 2021, a fifteen year old student walked into Oxford High School and murdered 4 students. He was seen trying to buy the ammunition for the shooting the day before.
With the correct measures in place, we should have been able to catch him buying them and stop the tragedy before it happened. It is severely distressing that the minimal gun control laws in our nation allowed for this severe oversight.
Stricter gun control laws are no longer an unrealistic want, rather they are becoming an unwelcome need.
This issue affects everybody, but most importantly to this nation’s children. Guns are the second leading cause of death among US children, and the leading cause of death for teens. Over 1.7 million children live in homes with unprotected, loaded guns. If we placed laws and regulations on the ownership of guns, we would be protecting our children as well as the rest of the population.
Guns are the second leading cause of death among US children, and the leading cause of death for teens.
The argument that guns are only harmful in the hands of malicious people, who would find ways to cause harm without them, is an overall false idea.
The damage done by guns is not limited to mass shootings or homicide. People who report “firearm access” are three times more likely to commit suicide. Suicide attempts are more deadly when a gun is used, 90% compared to 34% from jumping. Stricter gun laws and warrants for guns would decrease the death toll of suicide significantly.
If our government put in place background checks and identification requirements, it would save thousands of lives a year. According to a March 10, 2016 Lancet study about firearm mortality across states, universal background checks would reduce firearms deaths by 56.9%, universal background checks for ammunition by 80.7%, and gun identification requirements by 82.5%. We could save thousands of lives a year if we implemented these into our legislative system, and it is mind-blowing that we have not yet.
Mass shootings have become more and more commonplace in recent years.
It feels like I have seen a news report everyday about an active shooter in some part of the country. Fear of a school shooting has been drilled into the children of this country from the time we were in elementary school, and has only increased with time. I don’t want to watch my fellow students duck and cover anytime there is a loud noise in the hallway.
I don’t want the young children of our country to become as accustomed to the violence as our generation has. Violence will continue without guns, but that does not mean that we should not do our best to stop as much damage as we can.
Our country needs gun control.
Steve Luce • Jan 11, 2022 at 10:31 am
I can agree to a degree, I do agree that we should not have people who robbed 3 banks go in and buy a gun, background checks are good. However that would not help out entirely because criminals usually buy guns of the black market or cartels so they cant trace it back to where they bought it. Now you state that guns involve the highest deaths among teens which simply is not true, the leading cause of deaths are unintentional accidents and suicide. You also say that guns are commonly used in Suicide which is not true at all, people could kill themselves with rope, cars, heights, and paper bags! I could kill myself with a plastic Giant Eagle bag right now, using a gun is actually not all that common when it comes to suicide. Now you say, “Guns are only harmful in hands of malicious people, who would find ways to cause harm without them, is an overall false idea.” Now this is not true, I will be blunt with you, you can die in many terrible terrible ways. And humans have been killing each other long before there where guns so if that guy wanted to kill somebody, you can bet that their will be many ways to do it. Now I get it, we all want an easy fix to all this crime, but getting rid of guns will not solve it granted I dont know what would have fixed it but getting rid of guns wont.
Robert Muldoon • Jan 12, 2022 at 9:52 am
I 100% agree