Gun control is a problem currently
on the national headlines; one solution that would help would be to tighten up
the running of background checks for gun sales or transfers to where it is
required for all transactions, except for private family sales. My proposal is
to institute laws that require that a background check be run for every gun
transaction and to make the punishments for breaking the law more extreme.
Now I am not your normal American young man. I was born and raised with guns all around me and also with a lot of guns in my local community. My high school was one where every pickup you saw had at least 2 guns in the back window and that was perfectly normal. Most people would not expect there to be much gun crime here but there is.
Now I am not your normal American young man. I was born and raised with guns all around me and also with a lot of guns in my local community. My high school was one where every pickup you saw had at least 2 guns in the back window and that was perfectly normal. Most people would not expect there to be much gun crime here but there is.
In this town of about 2000 people, in the last ten years, there have been many gun accidents, including accidental self-inflicted wounds as well as two gun related murders. One of those murders was because a son got made at his dad and took his rage out by shooting him many times.
The crazy thing is that most guns in my small town were sold by private sellers or at gun shows so that most people that obtained these guns never had to go through a background check. Just think, if it’s like this in a small town, what about the big cities? How can we solve this problem?
According to articles by the NRA most people that commit gun related crimes never went through a background check to get their gun. Where do they get there guns? Well, a lot get them from friends, others from family members, and others from local gun shows, and none of these processes require a background check.
Now, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that you will ever be able to regulate the background checks of sales or transfers done in families because the government doesn't have enough resources to do so and in my opinion would probably start a rebellion. This happens a lot even in my family, we had about 10 gun transfers or sales in about 3 years.
On the other transactions or sales, though, it is very possible to have the government implement laws to regulate the sale and transfer of guns for any transaction minus family ones. These laws would make it illegal to have and kind of gun show or sale or anything to do with gun transfers without requiring the buyer to have a background check ran on them. It might be rough at first getting it going, but it will work.
As well, the government should implement harsher punishments for breaking these crimes. If the punishment for breaking this crime is similar to the crimes that it leads to, I believe that it will make many people avoid it, and then they don’t even have to get to the worse crime. Also, those that are caught breaking this one won’t be around to break the other.
I really like and support your opinions dealing with thorough background checks, but I'm not sure if background checks will prevent, say that boy in your town taking advantage of his father's gun ownership and committing a heinous crime. The same could be said about the Sandy Hook incident where the murder used his mother's legally bought weapons to commit his mass murder. Is there any other way to combat this issue?
ReplyDeleteOf course this won't prevent every kind of crime that will happen nothing will. But the point of it is that it is here to help cut down on crimes and help us to be safer. No matter what you do there will always be a group that is unaffected by it and will continue on with crimes. In a place filled with Siemens crime you sometimes have to pick your battles and take chances, you have to pick the option that will allow for fewer deaths. Because no matter what we do we can never shut it down completely until the Second Coming, but until then we can lessen it.
DeleteYou have a valid point about the lack of regulation that we have as far as private gun sales go. But you make a claim here that criminals get their guns through family, friends and gun shows. While this is true, the much larger majority obtain their weapons illegally, through black markets or through theft. There are few things that a background check will actually solve. I do agree that we need background checks on weapon purchases, but, as you said, the government simply does not have the resources to combat this. And, on the offhand chance that they do try to regulate gun shows and black markets, Operation fast and furious happens. We need background checks, but that is only enough to help the problem. We also need gun safe laws, as well as a crackdown on black markets if we want to stop criminal usage of firearms.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with you that my solution will not solve all things but I do not believe that it would become fuel to the fire. Your proposed solution to crackdown on black market sales is good in theory but if you really want to see operation fast and furious happen there is your smoking gun. It would start a fight that could never be won, have you ever looked into the fight going on with the drug cartels in Mexico, its a good theory to stop this black market sale of drugs but it has started a huge war that is much worse. now I'm not saying we take a back seat and watch things happen but we need to pick our battles and start small with things like background checks and work our way up. It takes time like any other thing that is worthwhile.
DeleteI agree with you that harder background checks should be enforced with guns, especially in regard to gun shows and private sales. I also like how you added a personal touch to the topic by talking about your hometown, but I don't see how the statistics you provide help your argument. Only 2 gun related murders in the last 10 years does not sound like very much, so this information doesn't help your argument, at least in my eyes. I think what we need to focus on is how guns are obtained through the black market or stolen from law abiding gun owners--there is simply no way background checks can prevent crimes committed with these weapons.
ReplyDeleteI have already discussed pretty well my thoughts on black market sales in my previous two comments, so i wont go there but I can talk about stolen guns from law abiding gun owners. So these people that get their guns stolen probably aren't too protective with their guns are they, well lets face it if they were they wouldn't be stolen would they? And where would you start with that accept to allow the background checks to help more protective law abiding citizens to own guns. And besides if these people really want to protect themselves they will use there guns to do so.
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