Keep America Armed

Grace Roberts

Protesters outside the St. Charles Convention Center wave Trump flags while awaiting his arrival. President Trump traveled to St. Charles to speak about tax cuts.

Marcus Falcomata

Vegas.  Texas.  Orlando.  Three events that have caused heartache in hundreds of families across America.  Events where law enforcement seemed to have no means to control the situation.  Disasters which have spawned many talks of the gun control, or lack thereof, that exists in America.

Many on the left have used these events to gain leverage on the intensifying gun control argument.  Although using disasters as a means to win arguments in itself is completely wrong, the arguments from the left, often hover around increasing gun control laws.  

Things they want implemented include background checks, bans on military grade automatic machine guns, and a ban on use of a bump-stock technique.  

The only problem with calling for these new laws:  They are already in place.  

One other revision that has been proposed is a ban on semi automatic weapons.  Supporters say that this would decrease mass-murder as an opportunity for troubled people in America.  This is seen as a major issue for many liberals as they cite studies that America is one of the world leaders in mass homicide.

The issue with a ban on all commercial semi automatic weapons is how little of an effect it would have on the amount of gun homicide in America.  In 2016, semi automatic guns made up about 2% of all gun deaths in the US.  

An extremely vast majority of gun homicides in America are caused by handguns.  If legislators want to sacrifice the right of Americans to own semi automatic weapons, they will solve around 2% of the gun homicide problem.

If Democratic legislators are feeling lucky, maybe they want to go for an all out ban on guns.  One issue with this is how extreme the backlash from Right-wing gun owners would be.  Many would buy guns at an extremely rapid pace in order to fight back.

Also, a law such as this would never get past a supreme court that exists to uphold the constitution.  The 2nd Amendment is almost strictly in place so when the government turns tyrannical, as almost all governments in history have done, the people have a means to defend their freedoms and natural rights on their own.

Since new legislation is not a viable solution to limiting gun homicides in America, the solution lies elsewhere.  

Many of the existent laws are performed with little accuracy.  In the cases of Las Vegas and Texas, the means by which the perpetrator obtained the weapons were illegal.  The man who committed the Las Vegas massacre had used the illegal bump-stock technique with legal weapons in order to fire more rapidly.  The killer in Texas was not legally allowed to purchase the guns used due his history of committing violent crimes.

Vendors of guns must enforce background checks with more accuracy in order to prevent extreme limitations on who can own guns being implemented.  Competence in the people who make sure people follow the laws is the best solution to an already complicated legal system.

If Congress were to add more legislation to pad onto existing gun laws, the problem would become exacerbated because gun vendor’s understanding of gun laws would decrease.  New gun laws can do nothing except get in the way of the enforcement of protections already in place, and cannot be considered as a way to decrease the gun homicide rate in America.