Bowling for Columbine

Gun control is a debate that occurs in many countries around the world, and is one of the biggest issues being dealt with in the United States. My government recently watched a movie called Bowling for Columbine. In this movie, Michael Moore focused on the pros and the cons of living in a pro-gun society and leaves his audience questioning their opinion on gun control issues.

In 2013, there were 14,827 murders in the United this is higher than any other country in the world. But what causes this high number of deaths in the United States? Many would like to blame our loose gun laws. I do not believe that this is the cause, how many criminals that shoot people acquire their guns legally? Many don’t, so how are making stricter gun laws going to stop this? It’s not! Criminals are criminals they break the law if they want a gun they will find a way to get it whether it is against the law or not. So don’t pass gun control laws punishing the people who don’t kill people.

The second amendment was passed in 1791 and states the following: “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.”( See more on the second amendment at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment2.html#sthash.FjWrxQNq.dpuf) many people see this as everyone has the right to own and bear arms no matter what, but is that how it was meant to be interrupted? I think at the time that the founding fathers meant that everyone has the right to own guns. Why? I think they knew that if the government was not regulated that it could get out of control and try to control everything. They knew that if this were to happen that the people would need guns to overthrow the government just as they did in the revolution against Great Britain. Now back then the guns they had were not very advanced and wouldn’t cause mass destruction like the weapons do today. I think that if the writers of the constitution were to write it today with the great advancement in weapons they would put regulations on weapons. I think that any weapon that the government has access to should be accessed by the public other than the weapons of mass destruction. Why?  Because if the sole purpose of the second amendment was to allow the people to be able to overthrow the government if it gets out of control then we the people need to be able to put up a fight.

People say that we need stricter gun laws because murder rate is higher and higher each year. This is not true. Murder rate has been slowly declining every year since 1993 and continues to decline. The reason that it seems like there are so much more murders is because of the media. The reason that the media focuses so much on the violence is to scare people.  Personally, I think that the government is using the media to scare people into giving up their guns. The reason the government would want that is so the people have no way of protecting themselves if they want to take over.

Personally, I think that gun control is bull crap. People look at guns as if the guns themselves are killing the people when in reality the people are killing the people. The gun is just how they choose to kill the person. If a person truly wanted to kill another person and they didn’t have a gun they would find something else to use. The United States may have the highest murder rate of any other country but not all of the murders in the United States are because of guns. In fact, about 55% of all murders are gun related. If only a little over half of the murders are gun related, then why are the only murders that are reported in the news gun related? What about all the other murders are they less important or is it just another way of making the people afraid of guns?  

I personally do not think that people need to be afraid of guns. If anything they need to be afraid of the person that uses the guns to cause harm to others.  I think they need to look deeper into a situation before jumping to the conclusion that it’s the guns that kill people and that they are dangerous. It’s not the guns it’s the people that are dangerous. The people that use the guns for things like hunting and aren’t causing harm to others shouldn’t be punished because of a few people who do use them wrongly.

Guns have been always been a part of the American culture and are what gave and still gives this country the freedom we have today. Yes, gun can be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands and unfortunately have been used to claim many innocent lives that didn’t need to be taken. Gun control is necessary to a certain degree. I do not believe in the government taking away out assault rifles or any other type of rifle. The only thing that should be restricted are any type of explosives.