THE PERSUASIVE SPEECH - Essay Example

Speech: Why Gun Control? The liberal use of guns has become an order of the day in our country. Many of the gun crimes reported recently reveal that guns are enemies even to those who use them. Although like the report of US News, gun control has been a hot button issue for decades during election season (para 1), the present scenario in the US truly indicates the need of gun control so as to ensure public safety and social order. Once the permission to use guns is given to an individual, the liberty and free life of the fellow beings are at risk.

When I speak about gun control, I mean the effective management of firearms to reduce the criminal use of all such weapons. As we know, those who oppose gun control usually highlight the necessary for self-protection. They also maintain that individuals with guns would ensure self defense when police fail to provide protection to general public. However, evidently gun is not devised to threaten or injure someone but to kill. Hence, the free use of guns must be banned despite the so called benefits.

In the first place, once gun becomes a common utensil like knife or pen nobody will take serious care of it. Evidences show that guns are very often misused by everyone especially school children, for when they get emotionally upset, instead of seeking some counseling measures, they tend to pick parent’s gun and shoot at their peers and teachers. As reported in the New York Times dated May 2, 2011, in the 90s, the number of children carrying guns to the school was more than 10, 0000 in the US (School Shootings).

In the same way, the overall murder rate of the United States is “six times higher than the average economically developed nation” (Carter 4). It is also reported by Cleck that “both gun carrying and gun violence are phenomena almost entirely confined to world outside schools” (qtd. in “Texas Plan for guns..”). The statistics clearly shows the incidents like shooting in a college of Alabama killing one woman wounding three on April 7th 2011. The killing of 12 elementary school students by a gun man in Rio De Jeniro, Brazil on April 8th stands on the top of all such incidents (School shootings, May 2, 2011).

The practice of allowing children to get access to guns is not digestible for common sense. Some others argue that since criminals have guns, the public also must be given guns to counter balance the situation. There are people who have the license to use guns. But still there are incidents like bank robbery and house breaking. If the license to use guns would well tackle the situation there would have been much decline in bank robbery, house breaking and so on. But unfortunately that does not happen.

It is on this ground that president Obama stated recently, “"I believe the second amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms; but I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities" (Obama calls for…). Recently, as we heard, in Florida the auto dealership Nation’s Truck offered an imprudent promise of giving an AK-47 rifle for those who buy a truck. The idiotic offer of the company must be condemned on the ground that it is easy such a mass destructive weapons to reach the hands of the terrorists.

As Wuest through his book The Great American Gun Control Debate reminds us, “it is time to call a “ceasefire” and begin peace negotiations” (IX). 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 to their masters. We cannot cure an evil with something that is more evil. No incidents so far advocate that guns have brought in peace other than miseries. In order to ensure the social cohesion and individual safety, government must initiate effective gun control measures with immediate effect.

Works CitedCarter, Gregg Lee. Gun Control in the United States: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO, 2006. Web. Google Books. Gun control and gun rights. US News. Web 29 July 2012 “Obama calls for US gun control laws to be tightened in wake of Aurora shooting”. The Guardian. Web 29 July 2012 School Shootings. The New York Times. (May 2, 2011). Web 29 July 2012 “Texas plan for guns in school may not comply with state law”. (Aug 19, 2008). Brady campaign to prevent gun violence. Web 29 July 2012 Wuest, Michael E.

The Great American Gun Control Debate (Not!). Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2010. Print.