Gun Violence Essay Examples and Research Papers

How can we reduce gun violence?

Gun violence is a sensitive subject that has been constantly debated about over the past couple of decades. Having the ability to purchase something that can easily end someone’s life without harsh restrictions can be confusing in some eyes. With the rise of the recent mass shootings people are pressuring law makers to have stricter gun control or just to outright ban them. There have been many suggestions in reducing gun violence that have been proposed such as red flag laws, banning assault rifles, and having better background checks. I believe that we can reduce gun violence by implementing a law such as the red flag law and focusing on areas where gun violence is the highest and figuring out the reason behind it.

In Parkland, Florida there was a school shooting that had occurred in 2018. 17 people had lost their lives because of the incompetence of the police not listening to warning signs from civilians. “In the case of the Parkland shooting suspect, the police received at least 45 calls about him, and a woman close to him even communicated to the F.B.I. that she feared he would become a school shooter, listing specific examples of disturbing conduct — including holding a gun to the head of family members.” (Rubio). With this hard evidence against this criminal the authorities still chose to do nothing which is why a red flag law would be somewhat helpful in reducing gun violence. A red flag law would give the ability to restrict certain individuals that are unstable, and potentially violent to have restricted gun access for a period of time. We have seen it a lot where shooters will post things online indicating their harmful intentions before they go out and do it so having a red flag law would helpful in reducing gun violence and possibly even a mass shooting.

Statistics

Gun violence is not only just about mass shootings, it’s about regular shootings as well and people tend to forget that. All of us know a part of town that we probably should not go to since the crime rate is high and that it gets a bad reputation. In areas that have a significantly high crime rate involving guns such as Detroit or Florida we need to figure out why gun violence is so high in these areas so that we can take small steps in reducing it. We could possibly have more policing in these areas or maybe tackling on the problems that are in such areas in order to help the people. If we can focus on these places specifically with high amounts of gun violence and try to help them then it would be a huge step forward and a possible solution in reducing gun violence.

Now I want to talk about the negatives in my points in order to find some common ground. Having a red flag law would be great in all but at the end of the day it is still not enough to stop mass shootings. Like for example with the Dayton mass shooting. “…We found no evidence that the subject communicated his violent intentions to others before the attack . . . The subject had no known history of mental health care and treatment . . . The subject left no clear evidence of a plan or manifesto detailing his intent and rationale or revealing any observable pre-attack behaviors…No one, however, described him, his behaviors or his communications as overtly aggressive or violent” (Geragthy). This man that committed this mass shooting showed no possible signs of even being a mass shooter at all. He was a normal guy in the eyes of everyone he knew and from what police could find. The shooter got his guns legally and passed his background checks but still committed a heinous crime. This goes to show that even though having a red flag law can possibly help reduce gun violence, it does not stop it because as long as someone can remain undetectable in the eyes of the law and everyone else then an event such as the Dayton shooting can happen again which is extremely unsettling.

Conclusion

In conclusion gun violence is a topic that will keep being debated about until the end of time. Guns would never ever be taken away from us Americans since it is our second amendment right. We could implement laws and have bans on guns to reduce it, but gun violence will still occur and if it occurs it will keep being debated about and create a never-ending cycle. We must accept it and try to do all that what we can to prevent gun violence in our country. We live in a cruel world gun violence can happen anywhere at any given time and unfortunately, it’s going to be like that until we pass on.

Reflection

The investigation of gun violence has piqued my interest a little bit. I have seen gun violence be constantly talked about on the news especially now will all these recent shootings. It’s a topic that needs to be talked about but there is no good solution that people can see eye-to-eye on. Aside from that this semester has not really helped me identify areas for further improvement because I already know what I need to focus and improve on which is maintaining my current GPA.