Report Archive

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Understanding Firearms in America

By Colby Klob

April 12th, 2018 - Greenville, New York
News

   On October 1st, around 10 o’clock p.m. in Las Vegas, Nevada, a man named Stephen Paddock unleashed a storm of bullets on the crowd of a country music concert from his suite at Mandalay Bay Resort. The man had a stockpile of guns and ammo, including semi-automatic rifles outfitted with scopes and “bump stocks.” A bump-stock is made to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a practically fully automatic weapon by using the gun’s recoil to repeatedly pull the trigger. This incident shocked most Americans, even many that are avid gun supporters.   

     With the amount of death dealt out with a weapon that was legal, there has been a renewed call to investigate guns in America. With the increased partisanship of the American Political climate it is hard to cut through the issues surrounding gun control. It seems you have to be either a supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and that is how you make political decisions, or you are on the other end of the spectrum, and want all guns to be banned. Many people do not know much about guns in America, the history of the 2nd Amendment, and what gun violence really looks like in this country. According to UCR.FBI.Gov, there were an estimated 270 million to 310 million guns in the United States, and in 2013, there were 73,505 firearm injuries and 33,636 deaths last year. While according to CBS News, one person per year in Ireland, Australia, Germany, and Hungary are killed with a firearm.
  
    Many people think they are reading the 2nd Amendment as an original document and that it cannot be altered, however there is a long history of ratification. Owning an automatic weapon was outlawed in 1934 for example, because Al Capone, the notorious gangster, killed seven people with an automatic weapon. In 1994, the assault weapons ban came into effect, which banned some semi automatic weapons. Bump stocks were already outlawed in some states, but are now facing a countrywide ban. There is a renewed interest in seeing what limits can be put on the second amendment. 

     In the small rural community that I live in, many people use their guns for hunting, which provides their family food. It’s hard to argue that if used for this purpose firearms would be a danger. However, with aftermarket attachments such as the bump stock, it is hard to make the argument that these weapons are necessary for anything other than causing mass casualties.

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