Gun Control

To start, tell your father thank you for serving our community as a police officer. In today"s world, it"s a very dangerous and difficult job. I am very thankful for law enforcement officers. My uncle is a deputy sheriff in my hometown and I worry about him constantly, especially in light of recent stories on the news and the Baltimore riots. However, having a personal weapon doesn"t negate the need for police officers. I don"t think my argument suggests that in any way at all. It actually suggests the opposite. Criminals take the law into their own hands. Criminals are the reason that police officers have jobs. Criminals are the reasons why gun control would never work. Law abiding citizens need protection from CRIMINALS. I"m sure your father is familiar with the average response time in the United States for police officers to respond to an accident. In case you don"t know, it"s TEN MINUTES. It takes a determined/skilled criminal probably a tenth of that response time to bust out a window. Imagine this, you"re home alone and someone is breaking in. You call the cops, but they just keep coming. What if they have a weapon? What if they are there specifically to conduct violence and steal your personal property that you work for? Am I saying to take justice in your own hands and become a neighborhood vigilante? NO. However, if I found myself in that situation, I would be terrified and well within my rights to use deadly force to protect myself from the CRIMINAL entering my home illegally. You"re completely right. Child deaths involving guns are TOTALLY preventable. They are preventable IF THE ADULTS ARE RESPONSIBLE. In my house, guns are never accessible to children. They aren"t left on tables, in drawers, or any place where a child has access to them. Those deaths are solely the cause of ADULTS being irresponsible with guns. The nonprofit groups Every Town for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America did a study of all the child deaths involving guns in the home from 2012 to 2013 and found the seventy percent (62 of 89) of deaths could have been prevented with proper storage of the weapon. Without proper education, children shouldn"t be exposed to them. Regardless of how many statistics you present about how many children die each year, it doesn"t change the fact that with guns don"t kill people or children. PEOPLE kill PEOPLE. IRRESPONSIBLE ADULTS who leaves guns accessible to CHILDREN kill CHILDREN. Regardless of our personal feelings, how can we solve the problem of gun control? My only suggestion that doesn"t violate the 2nd Amendment is to put more strict requirements on gun purchasing and increased funding for police agencies to crack down on criminals purchasing guns. The knee jerk reaction to school shootings, the shooting at the movie theatre, the Fort Hood shooting and others is to ban guns, ban "assault" weapons, and make all guns illegal. However, criminals aren"t buying guns in licensed stores. They are getting them are gun shows and from illegal dealers. If we require background checks for ALL gun purchases and crack down on illegal firearms sales, the United States will see a drastic decrease in crime involving firearms. This theory has already been tested and it doesn"t work. In England and Wales, handguns are banned. In the past year, crimes involving guns in England and Wales has increased by thirty five percent. Databases report that last year, 9,974 crimes involving firearms were committed there last year WHERE HAND GUNS ARE BANNED. I"ve made this point multiple times. Criminals don"t care about laws. Pavilch, Katie. "Gun Crime Soars in England Where Guns Are Banned." Townhall.com. 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. "Innocents Lost: A Year of Unintentional Child Gun Deaths." EveryTown.org. Every Town for Gun Safety. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. "When Seconds Count, Police Are Minutes Away...Or Your 911 Call Goes to Voicemail - Freedom Outpost." Freedom Outpost. 19 June 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.