Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - Essay Example

The opponents of gun control argue that guns are necessary for self-protection. Furthermore, they would ensure self-defense when police fail to protect the general public. The proponents of this view believe that a burglar will always be armed and it gives him a higher advantage than the common man. If the general public also is given guns it may counterbalance the situation. However, the gun is not devised to threaten or injure someone but to kill; hence the free use of guns must be banned on the following grounds.

In the first place, nobody takes serious care of guns that it has become a common utensil like a knife or pen. Guns are very often misused by everyone, especially schoolchildren. When they get emotionally upset, instead of seeking some counseling measures, they pick up their parent’s guns and shoot at their peers and teachers. As reported in the New York Times, in the 90s, the number of children carrying guns to school was more than one lakh in the US. It is also reported that “both gun carrying and gun violence are phenomena almost entirely confined to the world outside schools” (Cleck, cited in Texas Plan for guns in school may not comply with state law, Aug 19, 2008). The statistics clearly show the incidents like shooting in a college in Alabama killing one woman and wounding three on April 7th, 2011. The killing of 12 elementary school students by a gunman in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on April 8th stands on top of all such incidents (School shootings, May 2, 2011). The practice of allowing children to get access to and use guns is not digestible for common sense.

The argument that guns are necessary for self-protection in the US can be severed by pointing out that guns can’t be carried to all places. The exponents of such an argument must answer how they would secure their lives in such a place. But no law prevents a person from carrying his body anywhere. So, those who are worried about their lives may master some martial arts so that they can well protect themselves from a person coming to assault them. Some others argue that since criminals have guns, the public also must be given them to counterbalance the situation. Some people have a license to use guns. But still, there are incidents like bank robbery and housebreaking. If the license to use guns would well tackle the situation there would have been much decline in a bank robbery, house breaking, and so on. But unfortunately, that does not happen.
Recently, in Florida, the auto dealership Nation’s Truck offered an imprudent promise of giving an AK-47 rifle to those who buy a truck.

The idiotic offer of the company must be condemned on the ground that it is easy for such mass destructive weapons to reach the hands of the terrorists. This would add an extra asset to the stockpiling of evildoers as an increase in the number of weapons also increases violence and the killing of innocent people. This shows the narrow concept of the companies to increase their profit without giving any consideration to social responsibility. Only licensed companies and the government must be given the privilege to deal in arms and ammunition. Further, licenses given in case of inevitable circumstances must be limited to handguns and not to mass destructive weapons.

In brief, I affirm that guns or any weapons are the means of destruction and killing, not of construction and creation. They are even enemies of their masters. We cannot cure evil with something more evil. No incidents so far advocate that guns have brought peace other than miseries. To ensure social cohesion and individual safety, the government must initiate effective gun control measures with immediate effect. Read More