Essay - Ownership of Guns by the Public I. Background and Thesis...

Ownership of Guns by the Public

I. Background and Thesis

The ownership ***** guns by the public has been a topic of much needed deb*****te for quite some time. Various organizations and support groups have been in action ***** ***** pro-gun ***** anti-gun views on whether a citizen should be allowed to own and keep a gun on his/her person or on his/her own property. Many ***** the people who own ***** do so for hunting, self-defense, or collecting pleasure. But there have been innumerable cases in which the use the gun has resulted in death of another pers*****. The issue of gun control pertains ***** those laws and regulations that would result in a limited number ***** people buying the guns, thus controling the distribution of guns ***** that they do not fall into the wrong hands.

Pro-gunners disagree on the limitations that gun control would put on ********** lifestyle. Some people believe it should be absolute, and any and all arms should be legal. ***** pro-gunners and declare that heavy military equipment such as tanks, bazook*****, etc., ***** be illegal, while reasonable controls on items such as automatic machine guns are ***** right. At the same time m***** people ***** that even owning a si*****ple h*****ndgun should be ***** and strict regulat*****y c*****trol should be enacted when anyone wants to purchase a fire*****rm. Guns, in my opinion, ***** be legal for buying ***** people should not have ***** go through a great deal of hassle in order to acquire a simple gun.

II. Opposition: Guns kill *****.

***** problem with *****s is fairly straightforward: they make it easy to kill or *****jure a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (February 1994), he points out t***** obvious dangers: Approximately 60 percent ***** all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were *****ed ***** firearms. According to estimates, firearm attacks injured another 70,000 *****, some of *****m ***** left permanently d*****abled. In 1985 (the latest year for which data are available), ***** cost of shootings--either by others, through self-inflicted wounds, or in accidents--was estimated to be more than $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. ***** rob*****ries and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun ***** when he or she has ***** weapon ***** ***** unarmed. An accidental gunshot is also a lethal disposition.

Obviously, ***** are different types ***** gun murder. There is 1st degree, premeditated murder, in which case the ***** just made it easier, but the killer probably would have killed anyway, given that he had time to premeditate. But after *****, there is murder ***** course of other crime, acquaintance murders in the heat ***** passion, ***** criminal negligence. *****d natur*****y, there are the non-***** injuries from firearms as well. These *****lethal injuries ***** actually been going *****wn recently, but th***** is not beca***** ********** number of shootings is going down; but rather that emergency room doc*****rs