As we hear about the mass shootings on television and as we read about the gang violence in our local newspapers, we could ask ourselves, could something have been done to stop this crime? There many ways to answer these questions, but I have decided to take the position that we need more gun control in order to stop these horrible crimes. Doing research on this topic, it was interesting to learn how and why we should implement more gun control in order to help police combat these gruesome crimes. First, we will flashback into the past and learn about how crime control evolved over the last 100 years. Next, I will give my take on how we will tackle these crimes with some new gun control legislation. Finally, I will give my afterthoughts about the effects that tougher gun control measures will have on our society and how it will help keep crime levels low.
First, before we delve further into anymore talking about modern ways to tackle gun crime, we must first understand where the belief of more gun control came from over the last 100 years. With rising mob violence during the early Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt wanted Congress to pass gun control legislation in order to lower this violence. Congress responded in 1934 with the passage of National Firearms Act, which put a heavy tax on the manufacturers and the sellers of machine guns and sawn off shotguns. All sales were to be recorded in order to make sure criminals did not get their hands on these weapons. Four years later congress passed the National Firearms Act of 1938, which put requirements such as requiring gun sellers to register with the national government in order to get a gun selling license. It would take another thirty years until Congress would act with more gun control legislation. In 1968, with rising crime levels and the threat of gun violence, Congress passed Omnibus Crime Act and Gun Control Act of 1968. These acts prohibited the mentally ill, convicted felons, and drug users from obtaining a weapon and it required gun sellers to take more accurate records on the people who were buying the guns. Another 18 years later, Congress passed the Firearms Protection Act of 1986, which limited the federal government from checking weapons, and this was seen as a loss for gun control advocates. Gun Control Advocates still got their way because according to the Washingtonpost.com, “an amendment was passed banning civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.” One of the best pieces of gun control legislation was passed in 1993 with the passing of the Brady Handgun Act, which required background checks on each person buying a weapon. The FBI also introduced the National Crime Background Check System, which tracks people who buy weapons, but it did not track non-licensed sellers, though some states laws required them to do background checks anyways. In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control Act which put a ten-year ban on the manufacture of semi-automatic assault weapons. All of these acts had an important influence on gun-control in our modern day, but I believe we can go further to prevent rising crime levels and also protecting people’s rights to own guns as well.
I have taken the side that we should pass more common sense gun control legislation in order to protect the law abiding second amendment gun owners and to protect our streets from these gun crimes. Where I come from in rural Nebraska, people love to hunt with hunting rifles, and usually abided by the laws in order to acquire the weapon, but a good question is why does a hunter need an assault weapon to kill deer or turkeys? The second amendment does not allow a person to own an unlimited amount of assault rifles or pistols for the purpose of hunting or protecting a home. The federal government can allow those law-abiding citizens to have a less powered shotgun or hunting rifles in their homes for self-defense or hunting. I believe the federal government should expand the assault rifles manufacturing ban into a full fledge ban on assault weapons and full out ban on the selling of the ammunition for them. Assault weapons are not needed in daily American and preventing less assault weapons on the streets would help keep gun related crime down. Congress should also add laws that limit the amount of ammunition for weapons people can buy such as instead of selling 30 rounds, maybe selling 15 rounds. This decent number of bullets should be enough for a person to guard their home or to hunt with. The federal government should have the right to expand background checks in order to prevent a man who looks sane and has no criminal record, but does have a mental illness from buying a pistol. People can get through the background check loophole by purchasing guns at gun shows or buying privately, this can cause many setbacks to the system and it can lead to more harm than good. Congress should pass a bill that forces gun show owners to do background checks on people who buy weapons, and many Americans agree. According to a Pew Research Study on Background checks, “79% of gun owners, 86% of people who live with gun owners, and 74% of NRA households approve of background checks for private and gun sale shows.” If the federal government added a background database on each person who bought a weapon we would be able to see if they somehow bypassed the system, if they committed a crime, or if they had a problem and it slipped through the cracks. A background check on the person’s family history could show mental illness, or a lot of crime in the family, which may mean the man may follow in his family’s footsteps and may commit crimes. All of these common-sense actions that we can convince our government to pass, this also allows people to have their ownership of weapons, and it also allows us to feel more safe on the streets. This is why we need our government to act on more gun control, and it would make sense to protect the gun rights of American citizens while preventing people who are crazy from killing children at a school, or killing people on the street.
In my final point, I will now discuss the effects of passing each of those common-sense gun-control legislations would do for our society and how it would have an effect on street crime.