Gun Control on Campus

Gun Control
When the Second Amendment was penned by our Founding

Fathers in the year 1789, the U.S. was in its infancy. Still threatened

by Britain and unable to protect itself with an organized military, the

best defense that America could muster up would be by arming their

citizens. This is the reason why the Second Amendment protects

the right to bear arms. Now fast forward 219 years, the United

States is the world power and has the best military in the world. Do

we still need to fashion our citizens with the latest handgun?


On March 12, 2007, a 6-year old girl was shot in the midst of a

gunfight between her father and a robber in the hallway of their

apartment complex. The father chased the robber down the hallway

with a handgun, after the robber had taken money from their home.

The girl followed her father into the hallway and ended up in the line

of fire (Fort Wayne News Sentinel). The bullets weren’t intended for

the little girl, but that day she became another sad statistic in

handgun related deaths. In 2005, 3,027 young people were killed

by firearms in the U.S., and even more shockingly for every child and

teenager killed by a gun; nearly six were estimated to be non-fatally

wounded. That is 18,162 cases of teenagers getting shot by a

handgun (BradyCampaign.org).

Handguns aren’t necessary for people to have in their homes,

they aren’t used for hunting and the statistics don’t lie in the fact

that just having a handgun in your home is dangerous. According to

the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, any gun is 22 times

more likely to be used in a criminal, unintentional, or suicide-related

shooting than to be used in a self-defense shooting. This directly

opposes the National Rifle Association’s claim that “Handguns are

used for protection against criminals nearly two million times per

year, up to five times more often than to commit crimes.”... [continues]

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