Guns are a major part of America’s history, as they are to this very day. The dependency people feel towards guns are blinding them to their true nature. Their nature of being lethal instruments that are the cause of many of our everyday problems. Guns should be banned. It needs to be done. The logical circumstances for that kind of radical change is because it’s the only thing that can be done. School shootings are becoming more common, crime rates are going up, suicide by guns are more common then any other method, and negligence are all examples of the things that are happening because of the massive amounts of available firearms in this nation.

An increase of the death rate in the U.S has been obvious for some time, and even if making guns illegal only leads to the criminals having then it is still a step toward the right way. This is still an incredible improvement of almost everyone having a gun. The fact is, when you reduce the number of people who have guns, then you reduce the number of incidents that cause innocent people to get killed. That’s just the way that things work out, that is life.

Society is filled with violence, crime and war. The media / news are proof of this. You can no longer turn the TV on and not see some act of violence. The movies and TV shows glorify the gun, they show it as the finishing touches to huge body built men saving the day once again. Video games, another good example, how often do you go to the movies or an arcade and not see some form of shooting game? All to often in my opinion. When I sit with my family to dinner and we turn on the news, stories of school shootings and murders unfold before us. The most current issue is “The Sniper“, a man who is so insane he goes around shooting people in the head, this man has killed around 12 or 13 people! What is being done to stop these kind of people from getting guns? And the answer to that is that there is no answer. It is impossible to keep these guns from reaching all of the hands of people who are not fit to use one. This further supports my opinion that guns are only a weakness, and not a necessity.

School violence is caused by gun availability.

* Bethel, Alaska, February 19, 1997: A high school student shoots and kills the school principal and a student in the school’s common area.

* Paducah, Kentucky, December 1, 1997: A fourteen year old boy opens fire in a before-school prayer group, wounding five and killing two students

* Little, Colorado , April 20, 1999 : Fourteen students and one teacher are shot and killed another twenty students are wounded when two students open fire.

These acts of violence are obvious results of guns laying around the house. What these stories do tell you is of what happened to the primary victims of the events, but what they do not tell you is how many people it effected besides them; family, friends and anyone who ever knew them. Do you know what it is like to lose someone to violence? Imagine how many people have to go through this everyday, because of stupid people leaving guns where kids can access them. This is injustice. According to the FBI statistics, each year around six thousand gun related incidents in the nations schools are reported to law enforcement officials, many of them are not. Another poll taken states that 1 in 12 high school students surveyed said that they had taken a gun to school within the last month. Are people not disgusted with the masses of young people who are getting a hold of guns? To me that’s disturbing to think that the kid sitting next to me in Math or Spanish class could have a gun in their backpack. Or the guy that has been trying to pick a fight with me. That really makes a person think twice at school before getting into a fight. What if that person does have a gun? I know I do, I do not feel safe at school. Can you blame me?.

When a survey was taken in America in 2000 by O’ Donnel; it was reported that there was an average of one gun in every home. In most cases more then two guns were present. Out of these accounted for 52% of them were kept loaded and 48% were not locked up or kept out of reach of children. This would explain why kids between the ages of 16 and 19 have the highest handgun victimization rate.

Guns do not reduce crime, even though many people tend to think differently. Guns only increase the chances of gun related violence. Some individuals try and use a case in Florida to try and disprove this theory. When a law was passed in Florida that legalized concealed weapons, crime rates dropped about 10%. But a couple years later the crime rate rose to over 20% then it originally had in the first place. This is what eventually led to Florida becoming the nations capital for violence and crimes, gun related. Burglaries, rapes, murders and suicides are all included in these numbers.

One interesting thing that I had found in the research I had to do for this speech is that people and articles that were for the use of guns, only told the first part of this story, not the second.

Over the last century the United States had the highest per capita rate of firearm suicides (7.35 suicides for every 100,000 people). I opened up an issue of seventeen magazine the other day and I read an article on a boy that had committed suicide. The boy was involved in sports, clubs and school. Everyone thought of him as the fun loving jock that everyone loved. One night he was depressed over a break up with his girlfriend so he went out to the garage got his dad’s hunting rifle and shot himself in the head. What could have prevented this? Yes, if it was locked up better but things like this would rarely ever happen if guns were not available. This was only one bad night in this boys life but he decided to end everything in a way that was irreversible. A cold, hard, barrel to his forehead, and one pull of a trigger. Guns are used in over 60% of all suicides.

This can hit a little closer to home by asking one to think. What if this was your mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, significant other, or even your own child? When guns are available to someone who is suicidal or depressed, this is often a scary situation because in a heated or depressing moment it may seem like an efficient thing to do. A suicidal person is not thinking, all they know is, “How do I make the pain stop?”.

Guns may only be a tool of protection to some but too many cases of negligence have been surfacing. Innocent people are dying because of stupid, quick, irreversible decisions. And logically one should realize that when people abuse a right as much as they have this one, then that is good reason to take it away from them. When a right comes at the risks of lives, goals, and dreams of others then it is no longer a valid right.

Bibliography

• The consequences of guns http://ww.planetpapers.com/assets/1784.php
• Gun Control, opposing viewpoints digest, by terry O' niel, 2000
• Gun Control, the overview series, by Neal bernards, 1996