Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
13 April 2018
Ben Henderson
Persuasive Policy Essay
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Intro
Parkland, Vegas, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech; the list goes
on. The places change, the numbers change, but the choice of weapon remains the same, guns.
Specifically, military grade assault style rifles. Easy-to-obtain assault weapons, once banned
under U.S. law, are a common thread connecting many of the deadliest mass shootings that have
occurred in our nation’s history. The gun industry has for many years marketed military-style
magazines, and bump stocks. Most people who own guns use them while hunting and/or for self-
protection, but when modified or paired with different magazines and bump stocks, these
weapons are not intended for self-defense or even for hunting; they are specifically designed to
make the weapon more efficient at what it was designed to do, kill.
There is an apparent need for a policy to fix this nightmare we are living in today. These
weapons can be easily obtained in the United States today, for example, “The perpetrator of the
school shooting in Parkland, Florida purchased his military-style assault weapon legally. So did
the man who shot more than 400 people in Las Vegas in October of 2017. So did the man who
gunned down 49 people at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in 2016. And so did the man who gunned
shootings like these, just a few weeks ago, on March 24, an estimated 800,000 people marched
for the March For Our Lives on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. to demand that their
lives and safety become a priority and that our country end gun violence and mass shootings in
Justification
On average, there is a mass shooting, defined broadly as four or more people injured or
killed, almost every day in the United States (Dietz). According to the Mass Shootings Tracker,
there have been over 10,000 victims of mass shootings since 2013 alone. Gun violence in the
United States costs $229 billion a year. To put this into perspective, this is more than $700 per
American every year, and more than the total economic cost of obesity, an estimated $147
billion, according to the Center for Disease Control. In 2010 alone, guns took the lives of over
31,000 Americans. This is more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour.
A starting comparison is this, between 1955 and 1975 the Vietnam War killed over 58,000
American soldiers- less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the U.S. in an average
two-year period (Giffords Law Center). While there are many statistics concerning gun
consumption, usage, and possession, many experts agree that there are somewhere around 3.75
million AR-15-type rifles in the United States today; frequently the weapon of choice in mass
shootings. If there are around 3.75 million firearms in the U.S. today, that means these auto-
loading assault-style rifles make up around one percent of the total arsenal. And keep in mind,
the AR-15 is just one of the many assault style rifles on the market. The Coalition to Stop Gun
Violence defines an assault weapon as a firearm with certain features that make it easier to shoot
large amounts of bullets across a wide area in a short period of time. Some assault weapon
features, like pistol grips and bump stocks, make the weapon easier to wield using two hands.
This allows the shooter to riddle an area with bullets without having to aim. Others attachments,
like detachable magazines, make it easier to maintain a high rate of fire for an extended period of
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time. These features, most of which were specifically designed for the military, are unnecessary
The American gun culture we know of today originated during the revolution when the
patriots, who were hunters and farmers, used their weapons to overthrow their tyrannical British
government. But due to a lack of weapons they were forced to take guns from the British in
instances like the raid on Harpers Ferry. In order to protect themselves from other tyrannical
governments or coups from the military, our forefathers made it a constitutional right for every
American to own weapons and have the ability to form a well-regulated militia. That sentiment
has stayed with the American people throughout history and the extreme sense of nationalism we
have developed and our deep love and respect for our military and their weapons has amplified
the love and respect these people have for the Second Amendment. American gun culture is an
anomaly and no other nation can be compared to America in that aspect. According to historian
Michael A. Bellesiles, “It is assumed that the nation’s love affair with the gun is impervious to
change, since its roots are so deep in our national history and psyche. The origin of this culture of
violence is routinely understood to lie in our frontier heritage. With guns in their hands and
bullets on their belts, the American frontiers men conquered the wilderness and created modern
America. In the imagined past, ‘the requirements for self-defense and food gathering…had put
firearms in the hands of nearly everyone.’ The almost universal ownership of guns in the
eighteenth century was enshrined in the Second Amendment to the constitution, and its
Policy
In 1994, after a string of mass killings committed by people with assault weapons,
Congress passed a law, similar to the one proposed by the author, banning specific assault
weapons. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban—officially, the Public Safety and Recreational
Firearms Use Protection Act, named 19 specific models and also banned copies or duplicates of
those models. In addition, the law outlawed guns that have two or more specific assault weapon
features. Guns that were legally passed before the effective date of the law remained legal. The
1994 assault weapons ban included what is called a sunset clause; this means the law would be
automatically repealed on September 13, 2004. President Bush indicated support for renewing
the ban but refused to lobby Congress to pass new legislation. Congress failed to act and extend
the ban, thus causing assault weapons to become legal under the provisions of federal law.
The first step to answering our nation’s cry is to implement a policy that will cease the
sales and distribution of assault style rifles, large-capacity magazines, and bump stocks. The
policy the author proposes is very similar to the former AWB which banned the sales of assault
style rifles and firearms containing a detachable magazine, but the author’s policy will
additionally ban large capacity magazines, and bump stocks. As with the AWB, previously
owned assault style rifles as well as the additionally accessories included in this policy will be
included in a “grandfather clause” allowing for the possession of such items that were otherwise
lawfully possessed on the date of enactment. This policy will make it unlawful for a person to
manufacture, transfer, or possess an assault style rifle, large capacity magazine, and/or bump
In the almost 14 years since this ban was repealed there has been a drastic increase in
collected data on every mass shooting from the years 1966 to 2016. His focus was to see whether
there was any change in the number of mass shootings while the 10-year federal ban on assault
weapons was in place. Klarevas calls the results “staggering”, “Compared with the 10-year
period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and
the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in
2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239
Rebuttal
At the mere mention of “gun control” many people get frustrated, assuming nothing will
work, or are reluctant to try anything at all. But there are many people who are trying to
implement change in our country and are pushing for better policy and gun regulations. While
keeping in mind that our Constitution states, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” we
need to also acknowledge that our laws do not coincide with the world we live in today. Yes, it is
important to abide by the constitutional laws our forefathers set for us but it is also important to
create new laws to protect the people our constitution is addressed to. An important phrase we
can find in the second amendment that is often overlooked is, “A well-regulated Militia…”, right
now our gun industry is not well regulated and we need to do something about it. There is a
glaring gap in federal law that allows people to buy guns without first having gone through a
thorough background check. But the background checks are not the key here because, “The
killers in recent incidents like Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs were each able to
walk into a gun shop in the days and months before their attacks, and legally purchase their
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assault weapons and magazines after passing a standard background check. Under an assault
The key is to keep assault style weapons and accessories out of the hands of a vast
majority of American citizens because they simply aren’t necessary. A common argument
against any sort of gun control is, “Well I have the right to protect myself!” Primarily, assault
style weapons are not needed to protect oneself in a majority of circumstances; but also, the
amount of times guns are used defensively per year is lower than gun advocates make it out to
be. Assault style weapons are not designed from a defense standpoint; they are designed from an
assault standpoint. These weapons are designed to be efficient killing machines, not a weapon
used to defend your home. “The gun lobby has often cited to a thoroughly debunked statistic that
guns are used defensively 2.5 million times per year in the United States. That discredited
estimate came from a 1995 study that suffered fatal flaws, including its reliance on only 66
responses in a telephone survey of 5,000 people, multiplied out to purportedly represent over 200
Conclusion
As the fatalities and injuries add up, our nation continues to cry out for change. We are
not living in 1791 when the Second Amendment was written, we are living in 2018, where the
ability to pass a background check and obtain a weapon is not foolproof. The ease of which one
can go about obtaining a firearm insinuates the desperate need for further action to be taken.
Though we have a constitutional right to bear arms, we also have the basic human right to live
safely, without being in constant fear of gun violence. It is also our constitutional right to speak
up and demand legislature that guarantees the personal safety of our citizens and anybody
visiting our country. Mass shootings are occurring at alarming rates with frightening amounts of
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casualties and suffering at the hands of people who have no business owning assault style rifles,
large-capacity magazines, or bump stocks. By allowing the purchase of these weapons and
accessories, our government and the gun lobby are enabling these people to commit these
atrocities. This policy, very similar to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, will stop the sales of
these unnecessary weapons to prevent dangerous people from hastily purchasing them with
deadly intentions. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California says it best, “This [policy] won’t stop
every mass shooting, but it will begin removing these weapons of war from our streets. Yes, it
will be a long process to reduce the massive supply of these assault weapons in our country, but
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