Gun Control
Gun control is a set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians. Many support this because gun related incidents have reached an all time high in the United States. The supporters of gun control wants tighter restrictions on guns in the country while the opposing is using the second amendment to fight against gun restrictions.The right to keep and bear arms was added to the US Constitution as part of the Bill of Rights, which was ratified on December 15, 1791.
The precise meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment has been a subject of frequent debate. Gun control advocates argue that when the newly founded country adopted the Second Amendment in 1791, each state maintained a militia composed of ordinary citizens who served as part-time soldiers. According to the amendment, these militias were “well regulated”—subject to state requirements concerning training, firearms, and periodic military exercises. Colonial law required every household to possess arms and every male of military age to be ready for military emergencies, bearing his own arm. In modern times, the amendment should protect only the states’ right to arm their own military forces, including their National Guard units. In modern times people are not being trained how to safely use guns, and many people have mental illness that they are not even aware of and some of these issues are not being taken into account when people are being sold firearms. According to Mental Health First Aid USA, 46 percent of adults in the United States experience a mental illness or will experience a mental health illness in their lifetime.
Magazine Article
“Rapper Eminem called out the NRA in his iHeartRadio performance on Sunday night, adding a blistering new freestyle verse to his song “Nowhere Fast,” where he attacked gun owners for “loving their guns more than our children.”The sobering performance was introduced by Alex Moscou, a survivor of the fatal school shootings in Parkland, Florida where 17 students died. Moscou said that he and other Parkland survivors were “tired of hearing politicians sending their thoughts and prayers to us, and doing nothing to make the necessary changes to prevent this tragedy from happening again.””( Eminem condems NRA, New York Times ).
The article “They Love Their Guns More Than Our Children.” written by Cady Lang is an article from iheartradio featured in Times magazine talks about how the rapper Eminem did using a freestyle on stage to attack gun owners. He says that gun owners must love guns more than they love their kids. His freestyle also went out to the NRA because they have been providing funds to the politicians. Eminem was calling for more gun control. The genre of the article is an opinion of Eminem and the medium would be through the media by his music.
This Times magazine article goes out to everyone who is affected by guns. The author appeals to the readers emotions using descriptive words to try to make readers feel sympathy and goes against gun supporters and making supporters think if they are right to care about their guns so much. The main purpose of the author is to make readers think if we really need stricter gun laws to protect our kids. The author also added what Moscou said about the government not doing anything to prevent gun violence so that people will ask themselves why the government is not making the necessary changes to protect the people.
Web Site Article
“Pros. The Second Amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns. In the June 26, 2008 District of Columbia et al. v. Heller US Supreme Court majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia, LLB, wrote, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited
Cons. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects individual gun ownership. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Gun ownership is an American tradition older than the country itself and is protected by the Second Amendment; more gun control laws would infringe upon the right to bear arms.” Gun control, Gale opposing viewpoints.
The title of the website article is “Should more gun control be enacted?”, by the authors of Procon.org. This article is a is not a biased article it lists factual information about whether or not gun laws should be enacted by government. They talk about the high mortality rate by gun related incidents and how stricter law helped the decrease that number drastically. They discuss the second amendment and how it should only protect individual that are apart of the militia but should not protect individuals that are felons or mentally ill in the past, currently or might be prone to mental illness. The audience of the piece is everyone in the public that is affected by guns and the medium used to get to all the people is the internet. The genre is journalism. It is not a biased article but a fact based piece that explores and evokes the question of whether more gun control should be enacted or not. In the article the position of people owning a gun and carrying it in public and business place was not protected by the second amendment.
Newspaper Article
“In early 2008, a Superior Court judge in San Diego granted Mr. Lamb’s petition to have his firearms rights restored, after his psychologist testified that he was not dangerous. But the judge, without access to Mr. Lamb’s full medical history, was unaware of a crucial fact: the local Veterans Affairs hospital had placed a “red flag” on Mr. Lamb, barring him from the hospital grounds because he was perceived to be a threat to personnel there. Your thorough analysis of firearm rights and mental illness makes one thing abundantly clear: the present patchwork of widely varying state regulations must be replaced by uniform federal standards. At a minimum, restoring the right to buy and possess firearms among those with severe psychiatric illness should require a comprehensive assessment of danger to self and others. This means taking into account not only the individual’s present mental state, but also one’s history of previous violence and substance abuse; likelihood of relapse; and record of adherence to medication and therapy.” Mixing Guns and Mental Illness, The New York Times.(front page, July 3)
Guns and mental illness by Ronald Pies is a New York Times newspaper article that was a response to another article that was discussing how a mentally ill person was able to carry a firearm just because he was taking his medications. He went on to say that states regulations on gun control for mentally ill persons should be standardized because a person can easily relapse and become a danger to himself and others. The author use logos to make is point to the readers, he shows examples of how Sam French got his right to carry guns even though he was prone to relapse into bipolar disorder.
The author also uses ethos to persuade the reader that there should be stricter gun control for mentally ill persons by showing that an mentally ill person carrying a firearm can be a danger to himself and everyone around. The author uses the rhetorical appeals to persuade the readers that there should be more gun control for mentally ill person.
Scholarly Source
For years, the NRA mantra has been that allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns would reduce crime as they fought off or scared off the criminals. Some early studies even purported to show that so-called right-to-carry (RTC) laws did just that, but a 2004 report from the National Research Council refuted that claim, saying it was not supported by “the scientific evidence,” while remaining uncertain about what the true impact of RTC laws was.The new research on this issue from my team at Stanford University has given the most compelling evidence to date that RTC laws are associated with significant increases in violent crime.
This is an article “More guns won’t stop gun violence” from a scholarly source by John J. Donohue III. In his article he talks about how the issue of gun control has been going on for years because the NRA has been fighting and funding the government against stricter gun laws. The article states that individuals have been allowed to carry a hidden firearm because of the right to carry law that was passed because it was said to keep people safe by scaring robbers and other criminals away.In recent years however new statistical data have been found showing that more guns even if they are concealed away contributes to the increase of gun violence. Guns were being stolen and used by criminals to cause more harm. The audience the author is trying to reach is everyone. The author uses logos by using scientific evidence to show the readers that more guns does not make the world a safer place but makes it even more violent and dangerous.
Gun control
Gun control is a set of laws that controls the distribution and possession of firearm by civilians. It can be argued that adults can purchase and own a gun if he or she wishes. Gun control supporters argues against being able to buy and own a gun just because they have the means to do so. In this essay, four (4) articles from different sources have been analysed. The first article from a magazine uses ethos to persuade the readers that guns are harmful and that they would be wrong to support the NRA. The second article was chosen from a website and it shows the pros and cons of having more gun control. Instead of using ethos as was done in the first article, the author used factual evidence to discuss gun control. The third and fourth articles speaks about the right to carry law that individual uses it fight against gun control. The third article talks about how a mentally ill person that was prone to relapse was given the right to carry a gun and the fourth states right to carry should be only for militia personnel.
In all four (4) articles there is a strong argument for gun control. In the website
article the author’s purpose was to argue against gun control saying that it will go against the people’s second amendment. However in the other articles the purpose was to show that the second amendment is not valid for the current time because civilians are not apart of the militia thus they do not need to own guns because more guns makes the country more unsafe than safe. The authors achieve each of their purpose by using factual evidence and by appealing to the readers emotions. For example in the article from the scholarly source the author presents statistical evidence that shows that owning a gun does not make it safer, this compels the reader to believe the author.
The articles from the magazine and the scholarly source are similar because they both talk about the NRA, they both take a stance against the NRA.
Citations
Lang, Cady. “Eminem Condemns NRA, Talks Gun Control at IHeartRadio Awards.” Time, Time, time.com/5195505/eminem-on-out-nra-iheartradio-awards-2018/.
“Gun Control.” Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3010999212/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=cc576011. Accessed 3 Oct. 2019.
“Guns and Mental Illness.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 July 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/opinion/l11guns.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGun%2BControl&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=search&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
III, John J. Donohue. “How US Gun Control Compares to the Rest of the World.” Stanford Law School, law.stanford.edu/2017/06/20/how-us-gun-control-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-world-2/.
“5 Surprising Mental Health Statistics.” Mental Health First Aid, 6 Feb. 2019, www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/2019/02/5-surprising-mental-health-statistics/.
