Controlling Your Gun
By: Kaytlin Binns
A four year old boy shot his mother, a pro-gun activist, in the backseat of their pickup truck on March 9th. The .45-caliber handgun slid in back from underneath the front seat where the child picked it up and shot his mother straight through her back. She did not die but was hospitalized and is now being tried for a misdemeanor charge.
Knowing your rights as a gun owners is very important and you need to try to not break the law while owning a gun. Gun control could potentially be the deciding factor over which president you choose. These days, you can’t watch the news without a shooting being brought up. What better way for presidents to get you to vote for them by addressing this hot topic in the media?
Guns should be legal and everyone, over the age of 18, should be able to have a gun if they want. Officials should still require background checks to get a gun but other than that, there should be no other difficulty. The only bad situations that come out of guns are when parents are too stupid to not lock them up or when a kid gets it from a parent and sells them to people who shouldn’t be owning a gun. If you lock your gun up, no one will get it. Guns are for safety purposes and hunting alone. 83% of gun owners nationally support criminal background checks on all sales of firearms, according to the Center for American Progress. This most likely means that the majority of gun owners aren’t going to murder you. If they are willing to get a background check, they don’t have anything to worry about and don’t care about them. Other than the fact that they take forever. Wouldn’t you feel much safer having a gun in your possession if an intruder barges into your house in the middle of the night wanting to kill your family? Okay, you can call the police, but let’s be honest, that person could kill all of you with a gun before the police even showed up.
Some supporting arguments are that “High-capacity magazines should be banned because they too often turn murder into mass murder,” according to ProCon, the leading source for pros and cons of controversial issues. The second amendment states that the rights of the people to keep and bare arms, shall not be infringed. Last but not least, Americans were 21.5 times more likely to die of heart disease; 18.7 times more likely to die of malignant tumors; and 2.4 times more likely to die of diabetes or 2.3 times more likely to die of Alzheimer’s than to die from a firearm (whether by accident, homicide, or suicide).
Some people say that criminals will use them to kill and cause damage but in reality, criminals will steal guns either way and do the same things. They’re already going to kill someone, what’s it to them if they steal a gun?
Jamie Gilt, the mother of the four year old boy, should get a misdemeanor charge. You can own a gun, as many as you want, but you have to keep them locked up. They’re in your possession so they should not be obtainable by a four year old.