Assault Rifles Should Be Banned In Washington State - Essay Example

Speech Presentation Assault Rifles Should Be Banned In Washington Introduction For quite some time there has been a heavy debate on whether assault rifles and other fire arms should be banned from being sold to and owned by citizens of the state of Washington. Previously the debate only surrounded banning firearms in general, but now the debate has become much focused on the banning of assault rifles. This is mainly because those who were against the banning of firearms have been able to win the debate.

But recent incidences have increased the concern related to assault rifles. Both sale and ownership of assault rifles such as Ak-47 should be banned because these rifles are most commonly used in mass shooting incidences, the ban will result in safeguarding the lives of defense officials and the ban is completely constitutional.Body One of the main reasons due to which assault rifles should be banned is that these fire arms provide an advantage to the shooter and allows them to take more lives and spread more fears in a very limited amount of time.

These rifles mostly contain more than 10 rounds and are easy and much faster to shoot and due to this several lives are taken away in a very small period of time. For example: in the Sandy Hook case the shooter, Adam Lanza used an assault rifle known as Bushmaster and within a matter of 10 minutes ended up taking a total of 27 lives at a school (Flegenheimer 1). Another reason due to which assault rifles should be banned is that it restricts the defenders of the nation in carrying out their duties in the best possible manner.

It does not only become an obstacle in the way police men carry out their duties, it has even resulted in the deaths of several policemen while they try to safeguard the citizens of Washington. According to Mathews, there has been an increase in the number of police officials being killed since the removal of the ban on assault weapons, he notes that during the period of 2009 there was an increase of 24% in the number of police officials being killed due to gun fire as compared to 2008 (Matthews 1).

Banning of assault rifles is completely constitutional and does not infringe upon the citizen’s right to purchase and carry arms as stated in the Second Amendment. During the period of 2008, Justice Scalia held in a verdict that the Second Amendment protects the right of the Americans to own and carry firearms but the amendment does not cover fire arms that are dangerous and unusual (Fuchs 1). This means that if Washington State bans assault rifles they would not be going against the constitution because these weapons are very dangerous as they have the ability to fire more than 10 rounds in a small amount of time period.

Conclusion The state of Washington can opt to ban assault rifles because it would lead to decrease in number of mass shootings, will save lives of police officials and enable them to perform their duties in a batter manner and banning is not against the constitution since such rifles are dangerous.Works CitedFlegenheimer, Matt. "Log In - The New York Times." Nytimes.com, 2013. Web. 11 Mar 2014. .Fuchs, Erin. "Justice Scalia Has Hinted That Powerful Assault Weapons May Be Banned." Business Insider.

Business Insider, Inc, 17 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. .Matthews, Jake. "For Lives and Liberty: Banning Assault Weapons in America." The Institute of Politics at Harvard University, 2014. Web. 11 Mar 2014. .