Guns don’t kill people, people do!

This piece of writing is about American gun control which has been a major issue for years. Many people cannot understand why America does not crack down on gun possession. A result of people armed with a gun is gun fights, school shootings and gun related murders. Why do people feel the need to hold a gun? Well many innocent people feel they need to carry a gun for protection. They feel they need protection against others that are carrying guns. This leads back to my point of the essay, Stop everyone carrying guns.

My essay is going to analyse the quote ‘Guns don’t kill people, People do!’ This is the slogan from the National Rifle Association (NRA).

I will examine the Columbine High School Rampage and how guns affected this situation. I will also look at the pros and cons of guns overall.

To start with the second amendment of the USA’s constitution states that ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep their bear arms, shall not be infringed.’ This quotation has a divided opinion across America. There are a number of people that feel this amendment only applies to the army and the defensive forces. These people are the ones that don’t believe in carrying an armed weapon. However, some of these people may own guns themselves in which case shows they are scared of something and are hiding behind their guns. If the forces hide behind their guns this does not make them the scary bunch they think they are. The people that own guns must be scared of something otherwise they would not feel the need to carry a gun, they would be able to deal with the situation themselves rather then the gun dealing with it.

The Colt Model 1911 was the product of a very capable person, named John Moses Browning, known as the father of several modern firearms. The pistol was designed to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Army, which, during its campaign against the Moros in Philippines. This shows that guns were made for protection in the war and only the war. However, what confuses the nation is why were they made? There were no other guns to be frightened of so what was their to protect against? Were the guns made to protect against weapons such as swords, knives or even bear fists. I think their was no need to introduce guns into our world, their was nothing to justify bringing guns in.

I think people were scared, even the police were scared because they now use guns for protection. I see it as a vicious circle of people who are all scared of each other. I see it as the police are scared of people that can cause them a threat so the police invest in guns, then some citizens are scared of the police’s guns so they invest in guns. Now some citizens are in possession of a gun so this scares the rest of the citizens so they want a gun. This vicious circle will be almost never ending. Even when everyone is an owner of a gun, a new weapon will appear and a new circle will create. In my eyes the only way to solve this vicious circle is to throw out all guns.

There have been many ideas to help slowly stop guns killing people such as the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA in its simplest form was founded in 1871 by former union officers and still today, 138 years later, it is the largest gun club in the world. The main aim of this association was to encourage sport shooting in order to have fine shooters incase of an emergencies such as war. Many of the members are interested in all aspects of shooting sports. The union officers believed that it was essential to have a well regulated form of controlled army, (militia) for the security of a free state. Its also an organization that disagrees with gun control and sees that it is correct to allow people to freely carry firearms for defense against threats whilst also using them for leisure e.g. hunting.

Even though the NRA are putting in a fair amount of effort to promote safety and gun ownership, killings and serious injuries still happen on occasion. One of the most serious incidents was the Columbine High School massacre.

On April 20, 1999 in a suburban town called Littleton, Colorado a high school was about to have one of the most tragic and life threatening day in the United States history.

In a premeditated attack, two students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold eighteen and seventeen years old, used armed weapons to fire at their class mates and teachers in a cold, black hearted attack. These two students ended fifteen people’s lives that day thirteen students and one teachers lives. They then added to the thirteen killed and turned their guns on themselves leaving the scene with no explanation. However the two did leave a video tape containing their plans to attack Columbine High School. This tape showed how Harris and Klebold were treated by a group of people at the school, how they were called ‘losers’ and that they were not part of the ‘in lot’ and how they felt like outsiders. It was later shown that they were humiliated, taunted, disrespected and made look idiots of by their classmates. However, their response was disproportionate.

How can two intelegent students that seemed fairly normal comit a crime as deadly and emotionally scarring as this?

So many people wonder (even their parents thought differently of their kids). They couldn’t believe they would even do such a thing. Their parents often said they did not like the music they listened to (Marilyn Manson and ICP) because it contained too many violent lyrics. This problem occurred in their choice of films and video games too.

One source of evidence to why they made this attack was that Eric Harris had a website which expressed his views about the students and teachers on Columbine High School. He even went to the extent of saying “God, I can’t wait until I can kill you people.” And “I’ll just go to some down town area in some big city and blow up and shoot everything I can”. To make things worse, the two students made a video for a school project displaying the two walking down the school corridors executing anyone in their way. A few teachers reported their behaviour as being disturbing but woefully no action was taken.

Some people debate that this massacre was not to do with the influence of violence from their environment. On the other hand, some say it is influenced by these sources of violence and the parents should have taken action in these areas. But the parents claim that they were not informed by the school that they were acting strangely or that there was a sign of behavioural problems at school. This could lead down to the lack of communication between the parents and the school. If more communication was involved then Columbine High School would not have seen these rancorous fantasies. So was it the armed weapons or Harris and Klebold to blame for this tragedy.

We can prove that even with laws on guns, killings still occur like on August 22, 2007 when Rhys Jones, eleven years old was shot dead in a pub car park on his way back from football training. He was shot by a hooded youth riding a bike said to be a member of the ‘Croxteth Crew’ who was said to be firing at his rival gang the ‘Nogga Doggz’ who had disrespectfully strolled into the area from Norris Green.

This catastrophic case has not been solved but recently (November 08) detectives are questioning six teenagers over the murder boys aged fifteen and sixteen, two men aged nineteen and girls aged fifteen and eighteen. They have also questioned a dark haired woman seen pushing a pram in the area at the time Rhys was impaled in the neck by a bullet and left to plead for help before he died in his mothers arms. This shows that gun crime kills people not only in America but all over the world.

After the death of Rhys Jones the British government took very firm action to amend ownership laws. However America has experienced many shootings and massacres involving guns but has taken no serious action to prevent it. This maybe because they have not come to the conclusion whether they should regulate guns or update the Second Amendment. My view is we fight to make guns illegal in America and I strongly think we should keep guns illegal in Britain because I believe guns are to blame for the majority of killings in the world.