Do Not Boycott Guns Entirely: Students Want Better Gun Restrictions

Photo credit/ Richard MacTough Students March downtown for gun reform

By Samantha Werkheiser

Editor-in-Chief

The Second Amendment was great when it was created in 1791. That was 227 years ago however.

At the time, militias were needed to gain freedom from Britain. In current times, I truly don’t believe that is plausible for a militia to overthrow the government.

The military in the United States is far too great and has far too many highly-advanced weapons for a militia to truly overthrow them.

Whereas the early American militias and the Britain military had similar weapons in the eighteenth century, American citizens and the American military don’t have comparable weapons.

Another factor that helped the colonial America militias is the financial backing from European countries. The current militias would doubtfully be backed by any other countries, even those that do dislike America.

Bloody Kansas is a likely a more accurate outcome of how militias would pan out these days.

͞So a citizen uprising at any point in the foreseeable future would probably not involve like-minded constitutionalists taking up arms to defend democracy and liberty. It would more likely be a matter of one aggrieved social group attacking another,͟ said political commentator Mark Nuckols in an article regarding American militias.

These things being said, I don’t want America to disallow their citizens to have guns entirely. I would just like to make the process of obtaining a gun a little safer.

In Florida, anyone over the age of 18 with a clean record can purchase an AR-15, without a waiting period. This is absolutely baffling. Why is it that easy to get this extremely deadly weapon that has been used in so many recent mass shootings?

When used as a defensive weapon, the AR-15 is an excellent choice. I’m even sure that the majority of people who purchase this weapon only have intentions of using it for hunting or protection.

If these are the intentions of people purchasing the gun, then why should they be frightened by stricter gun laws that ban the Purchase AR15 rifles?

The answer is that they shouldn’t be, especially when said laws and restrictions have a chance of increasing the safety of the general public.

The data on gun laws and lack of gun deaths show a direct correlation to one another.

Of the states with the tightest gun regulations, 7 out of 10 are in the bottom 10 for gun death rates, and 9 of them are in the bottom 20. Of the states with the least restrictive gun laws, 4 out of 10 are in the top 10 for highest gun deaths, and 8 of them are in the top 20.

Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but it can’t be denied that states with stricter gun laws have less gun related deaths.

Another surprising statistic is that no other developed nation even comes close to our gun related deaths. I don’t think that Americans are intrinsically more evil than people from other nations, the only big difference is the gun restrictions.

According to a study done by ͞The American Journal of Medicine͟, Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns than people in other developed countries.

If gun restrictions have been proven to decrease gun-related deaths, then why have they not been enacted yet?

Email Samantha at:

swerkheis4@live.esu.edu