Gun Control

4 Pages 935 Words

Gun Control

There are two points that need to be covered, while covering this topic; first, there is a compelling need for strict, Federal handgun control and legislation; and second, that such legislation must ban the possession, as well as the manufacture and sale, of handguns if it is to be effective.

Now the time has come to do something substantial about the horrendous plague of handgun violence, which has been a problem, in America since 1876. More and more Americans are becoming aware that there is a way to reduce the number of murders and deaths that we read about in the newspapers each day, or hear of on the news in the evening. Many Americans are becoming more and more, angry that congress has not moved to do anything effective about the situation. Americans know that 10,000 handgun murders should not be tolerated by congress. We should not tolerate robberies and assaults, committed with handguns. We should not tolerate the accidental deaths and injuries, or the unpremeditated and often unintentional killings of family and friends, which happen because somewhere in the house there is a family pistol. That pistol is nearly useless for self-defense; in fact, it is six times as likely to be used against a family member as it is to be used against and intruder. It is a target for criminals. There is not one good reason for the handgun to be there, and I propose that Americans need to do something to remove them and restrict them.

This is not an impossible task. Most of the other nations in the civilized world have already done so, and the numbers prove the success of the approach. Tokyo, a city of 10 million, had 3 handgun murders in 1973. England and Wales, with a combined population of about 15 million, had 35 murders by handguns. Meanwhile the United States have had 13,072 gun murders, of which 10,340 were by handgun. New York City alone had over 800 handgun murders in 1973; 23 times the gun murders in England and Wa...