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Gun Control is any legal measure or set of laws that prevent any possession to a firearm or in other words a gun. This article talks about what people today think about gun control and statistics on how many people in the United States own this weapon in their homes.

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What kinds of guns should be available for sale to the public? Who should be allowed to buy them? Where can they be carried? When is it legal to shoot one? And does restricting guns make America safer?

These questions form the core of the debate over gun control, one of the most divisive issues in American life.

This debate has been raging since the 1960s, when gun rights blossomed as a national political issue. It has culminated in multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns, Congressional standoffs and large public demonstrations.

The root of the debate is a single sentence in the U.S. Constitution, where the Second Amendment says: "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."

The interpretation of that line separates those who believe in more regulation of firearms and those who see any such legislation as an infringement on their individual liberties.

HOW OLD IS GUN CONTROL?

As old as the United States.

In the early days of the republic, black people ─ free and slaves ─ were barred from owning guns, as were Native Americans and people who did not pledge loyalty to the new country. A 1792 law required all eligible white men to buy a gun and enroll in a citizen militia, but those guns were also registered under state laws, according to UCLA Law professor Adam Winkler.

Prohibitions against black people owning guns continued until the late 1800s, with the passage of new civil rights laws. The first modern gun-control laws, which targeted machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and required federal licensing of gun dealers, were passed in the 1930s with Prohibition-era gangsters in mind. The next wave came in the late 1960s, in response to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, and calls by the Black Panthers and other black radicals for African-Americans to arm themselves. That led to the rise of the National Rifle Association as a political force, with the Second Amendment as its core principal.

Major federal gun control legislation was passed in 1986, when the future sale of machine guns was prohibited, as was the creation of a national firearms database. A background check system was established in the 1990s, as was the so-called "assault weapons ban," which covered certain semiautomatic rifles and expired in 2004.

Gun-rights hardliners' dream victory came in a 2008 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which decreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual's right to possess a firearm for self-defense.

State-level laws, meanwhile, remain patchwork, with many expanding gun rights and others restricting them.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE GUNS TODAY?

It's impossible to say for sure because there is no national registry of guns or gun owners.

One estimate comes from the General Social Survey, which says about a third of American households ─ and 22 percent of individual adults ─ reported having a firearm in 2014. A more recent Pew Research Center survey estimated that in 2017, 42 percent of U.S. adults lived in a household with a gun and 30 percent owned a gun themselves.

It's equally difficult to determine how many guns are in the United States. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report put the number at nearly 300 million. But gun sales have also exploded since then, driven by "panic buying" over fears of more gun control.

WHO SUPPORTS GUN CONTROL?

Gallup polling indicates a growing desire for more gun control; 60 percent say gun laws should be stricter, 5 percent say they should be less strict and 33 percent saying laws should remain as is. A February 2018 Quinnipiac University survey found 66 percent of respondents saying they supported stricter gun laws and 31 percent saying they didn't.

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What is gun control? The history, the arguments, the numbers

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What is gun control and the controversy around it? The root of the gun control debate stems from a single sentence in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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The article written by The New York Times further explains what authorities that work in the government and deal with law enforcement think about this national argument as well as the United States citizen’s point of view.

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The mass shooting in Roseburg, Ore. has reignited debate over gun control and gun rights in the United States.

Below are a series of questions drawn from what people have been searching for on Google since the shooting - and an attempt to answer them.

1. "Gun control" is a broad term that covers any sort of restriction on what kinds of firearms can be sold and bought, who can possess or sell them, where and how they can be stored or carried, what duties a seller has to vet a buyer, and what obligations both the buyer and the seller have to report transactions to the government.

Sometimes, the term is also used to cover related matters, like limits on types of ammunition and magazines, or technology, like the type that allows guns to fire only when gripped by their owners.

In recent years, gun control debates have focused primarily on background checks for buyers, allowing people to carry weapons in public, and whether to allow the possession of assault rifles.

2. What is the state of gun control today?

Federal law prohibits certain people from owning firearms: those with certain kinds of criminal records or mental illness; drug addicts; immigrants without legal status; veterans who left the military with a dishonorable discharge; anyone with a permanent restraining order keeping them from a partner or a partner's children. And there are others barred as well; a full list of the prohibitions can be found here.

Federal law requires that licensed gun dealers conduct a background check, through a database run by the F.B.I., to see if the customer is among those prohibited from owning a gun.

But the system has major holes in it, among them incomplete listings of criminal cases. Perhaps the biggest hole is that small-scale sellers, including many who do business at gun shows, are not required to do background checks - the so-called gun show loophole.

The law's provision on the mentally ill is extremely porous, too. It prohibits gun possession by a person "adjudicated as a mental defective" by a court or other authority. Most people with serious mental illness never receive such adjudication, and those who do can petition courts to have it reversed. Many mass shootings have been carried out by people who were recognized by those around them as being deeply disturbed, yet were able to own guns legally.

From 1994 to 2004, federal law also banned the sale of many types of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, but the law expired and has not been renewed. A few states have assault weapon bans of their own that remain in place.

In fact, most gun controls exist at the state level, with New York, California, New Jersey, Maryland, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois and Massachusetts being the most restrictive.

Some states have more stringent background check systems than the federal one, for example, and some require checks before private sales like those at gun shows. Some states require a license or permit to own a gun, but most do not.

Laws on carrying weapons vary enormously. Most states allow anyone who legally owns a gun to carry it openly, in public, without requiring a license or permit. A few states also have no permit requirement to carry a concealed gun. Concealed carry requires a permit in most states, but the majority of those states grant the permits automatically to any legal gun owners who want them. States also vary in their rules on gun possession in specific settings, like campuses and houses of worship.

For example, in Rhode Island, any person with a concealed carry permit can bring a gun onto the grounds of a public school, but next door in Massachusetts, written permission from school officials is required - and rarely given.

3. What do law enforcement authorities say about gun control?

There is no consensus. In fact, law enforcement officials have the same kinds of cultural and regional divides as everyone else.

In general, big-city police chiefs are more likely to support gun control, and small-town chiefs and sheriffs are more likely to oppose it. Those in the Northeast are more likely than those in the South and West to favor it.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association endorses closing the gun show loophole, strengthening the background check system, reinstating the assault weapons ban and other measures. The Major County Sheriffs' Association disagrees on assault weapons, but agrees on strengthening background checks.

The National Sheriffs Association, which includes more sparsely populated areas, has stated that it "does not support any laws that deprive any citizen of the rights provided" by the Second Amendment. And some rural sheriffs have simply refused to enforce new controls.

4. Where does the American public stand?

Over the past 25 years, Americans' support for stricter gun control laws has been generally declining even as the number of mass shootings is on the rise. While some high-profile shootings have resulted in calls for increased restrictions, that support has proved fleeting thus far. Gun control is one of the most sharply divisive issues in the U.S. today.

This chart, compiled by the Roper Center, provides a summary of public opinion on the issue since 1989. The most recent reading was taken in mid-September by Quinnipiac University, and found Americans were evenly divided. Several polls in the last several months have shown a similar divide with majorities of Democrats and those without a gun in their households favoring more restrictions on guns and majorities of Republicans and gun owners voicing opposition.

The results, however, also depend in part on how you ask the question. Surveys that ask broadly whether people favor stricter gun laws show the public roughly evenly divided but when surveys ask people about specific gun restrictions, the picture becomes much more pro-control.

Overwhelming majorities support universal background checks, and steps to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people. Those changes have vast support among Republicans and Democrats, and gun owners and non-owners alike. (In 2013, The New York Times profiled several people from across the country who had intimate experiences with firearms, including gun enthusiasts who fell on both sides of the gun control debate.) Majorities also favor the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales, and an assault weapons ban, though answers to those question show more of a partisan divide.

5. What are the arguments against gun control?

The arguments come down to principle, law and practicality.

Gun rights advocates see weapon possession as a matter of individual rights. They say that people have the right to arm themselves for hunting, self-defense, sport - or just because they want to.

Legally, the debates often come down to the Second Amendment, whose 18 th century context and language have been endlessly parsed and debated: "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 rights advocates say that means an individual right to gun possession, while gun control advocates say it means the people's collective right, through a militia.

For generations, the Supreme Court avoided directly answering the question, though its decisions were often seen as favoring the collective interpretation. But in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time, in a 5-to-4 decision, that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to have firearms. Even so, debates continue to rage on what sorts of limitations on that right are allowable.

On a practical level, gun owners argue that the weapons actually make society safer, giving people the power of self-defense, and dissuading criminals from victimizing people who might be armed. In particular, they say that an armed citizen can stop a mass shooter.

6. What are the arguments in favor?

They begin with numbers. The United States has far more gun ownership than other developed countries, and far more gun violence. In 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation had more than 33,000 firearms deaths: 70 percent of all homicides (11,208), more than half of all suicides (21,175), and hundreds of accidental and unsolved deaths.

Fewer guns, better records on who has them, and some restrictions on purchase, possession and storage, gun control advocates argue, would still allow law-abiding people to have firearms, while resulting in far fewer deaths. They contend that it is not a question of disarming the public or absolutes - most people agree that individuals should not have bazookas or machine guns - but a matter of where to draw sensible limits.

While gun-rights advocates say more people armed equal a safer society, people who favor gun control say the opposite is true: the more people carry weapons, the more likely it is that an everyday dispute can escalate to lethal force. Social scientists say there is little reliable data one way or another.

7. Why does nothing get done about gun control?

Gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, form a powerful lobby that politicians fear to cross. For many of them, it is a core voting issue, a line they will not cross, which, as President Obama recently lamented, is less often true for those who want gun control.

These advocates have effectively deployed the argument that after mass shootings, when emotions run high - and interest in new restrictions spikes - is not the time to debate the issue.

Opponents of gun control often talk about President Obama wanting to take guns away from lawful owners, and although he has never proposed to do that, many gun owners continue to believe it.

The gun lobby has also become more unyielding in recent years. The N.R.A. has hardened its opposition to expanded background checks, for example, and after years in which the group gave subdued responses to mass shootings, after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.'s executive vice president, famously declared that school employees should have been armed, because " The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Over the past generation, American politics have become more bitterly partisan, and regional divisions more rigid. As a result, gun control has become an increasingly partisan issue, with Republicans more uniformly opposed - at a time when Congress and most state houses are in Republican hands.

The result is that in recent years, states have gone in opposing directions. Responding in many cases to the same mass shootings, some have made their gun laws stricter (such as Oregon and Connecticut) while about the same number (including Arkansas and Georgia) have made theirs weaker.

In Congress and in more conservative and rural states, gun control tends to be a non-starter. Gun control advocates say politicians' fear of the gun rights lobby is exaggerated, but even in swing states and some more liberal ones, that lobby has a reputation for punishing those who step out of line.

After Colorado enacted new gun controls, in 2013, gun rights groups succeeded in recalling two Democratic state senators who had voted for the measures, including the Senate leader. In 2014, they targeted two Democratic governors who had signed tougher gun restrictions into law, John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, but both were narrowly re-elected.

Another example of the gun lobby's power came after Smith & Wesson broke with the rest of the gun industry in 2000, agreeing to several control measures to settle government lawsuits over gun violence. The N.R.A. led a boycott of Smith & Wesson, its sales plummeted, and rather than setting an example that other gun makers would follow, the company backed out of the deal.

Megan Thee-Brennan and Catrin Einhorn contributed reporting.

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The mass shooting in Roseburg, Ore. has reignited debate over gun control and gun rights in the United States. Below are a series of questions drawn from what people have been searching for on Google since the shooting - and an attempt to answer them.

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Gun violence affects so many people around the world. It changes the lives of many if they have experienced a trauma where a gun was involved. After the countless amount of gun violence incidents in schools, buildings, cities, religious areas, and more, this article discusses how researchers have focused on different laws discussing gun control and preventing gun violence.

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As the debate over how to reduce gun violence continues in the wake of last month's deadly Parkland, Florida school shooting, new research is shedding light on the impact state laws may have on the number of gun-related deaths -- and what happens when gun control laws in one state are either stronger or weaker than their neighbors'.

According to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 36,200 deaths from firearms in the United States in 2015, with guns killing more people than motor vehicle crashes.

While mass shootings tend to garner the most media attention, on average almost 100 people die each day in the United States from gun violence, including , domestic violence, accidents, and local criminal incidents.

"This is a public health emergency and yet we know so little about how to prevent these injuries and death," said Elinore Kaufman, MD, one of the study authors and chief resident in surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

Kaufman is pursuing a career in trauma surgery and said that "there have been too many times" when she had to tell a family whose loved one had been shot that nothing could be done to bring that person back, or that a teenage child was alive but paralyzed from a bullet to the spine.

She wanted to help find answers on the best ways to prevent these tragedies, so she decided to investigate the impact of state laws on gun violence.

"Specifically, in the U.S. most firearm policy is made at the state level, but states do not exist in a vacuum, and firearms can cross state lines, just like any other consumer good," Kaufman told CBS News. "No one had really investigated what this means for states with different degrees of firearm restriction in place."

The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, looks at the strength of gun laws in 48 states, as well as homicide and suicide rates in more than 3,100 counties across the country.

The researchers gave each county two scores. The first was a state policy score based on the strength of its firearm laws. The laws the researchers focused on include:

Laws mandating strict licensing requirements or increased law enforcement oversight of gun dealers.

Laws requiring background checks for private sales of firearms, including gun show sales.

Laws that require individuals to obtain licenses to purchase or own firearms.

Regulations setting minimum design standards for firearms, to limit the availability of inexpensive handguns.

Laws restricting multiple purchases of guns, designed to prevent "straw purchasers" from buying multiple weapons on behalf of someone who cannot legally purchase a firearm.

Laws requiring owners to report loss or theft of a firearm.

The researchers also gave each county an interstate policy score, where a higher score meant stricter laws in nearby states. This is important because firearms can be moved so easily across state lines, presenting a challenge to states that have stronger policies in place. Counties were then divided into low, medium, and high scores.

Using statistical models to compare groups of counties, the researchers found strong firearm laws in a state were associated with lower rates of firearm homicide. Conversely, counties in states with weak gun laws had the highest rates of firearm homicide.

They also discovered that counties in states with weaker gun laws had lower rates of firearm homicide when surrounding states had strong gun laws. This suggests that when a state strengthens its firearms laws, both that state and its neighbors could see protective benefits.

"We thought that because guns can cross state lines, counties in states with restrictive laws might have higher homicide rates if they were near other states with more lenient laws," Kaufman said. "But what we found was somewhat the opposite. Counties in states with weak laws had fewer deaths than expected when surrounding state laws were strong.

"We can't say what causes this relationship," she continued, "but it is encouraging to think that these policies might have benefits that extend across state lines -- a bit of a halo effect."

The authors note that the study is observational and cannot prove a cause and effect relationship between firearm laws and gun violence. The study also notes that only a few states -- mostly along the East Coast, plus Illinois, Michigan and California -- have strict laws, so the "ability to detect an effect of the strictest laws may have been limited," the authors wrote. Guns sold through the mail and internet can also make firearms equally accessible no matter where someone lives.

Guns and suicide

Suicides account for nearly two-thirds of the gun deaths in the U.S. each year. About 22,000 people took their own life with a gun in 2015.

When the researchers looked specifically at suicide, they found that strong firearm laws in a state were associated with lower rates of suicide by gun -- and lower suicide rates overall, suggesting that people did not just find another way to kill themselves. That was true regardless of the strength of gun laws in neighboring states.

The researchers say this finding is consistent with previous research showing that most firearm suicides involve people who own a gun or a family member of a gun owner, and likely involve legally-purchased firearms obtained for other purposes.

"Many suicides are impulsive, and the urge to die fades away. Firearms are a swift and lethal method of suicide with a high case-fatality rate," David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, explained in a statement about another study on gun deaths published in 2016.

Limited data on how to stop gun violence

The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people propelled the debate over gun safety laws once again into the national spotlight. Students led the call for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses across the United States aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher restrictions on guns.

Gun advocates, including Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association (NRA) take the opposite approach, asserting that more armed security rather than fewer guns is the answer.

However, little data actually exists to inform this debate with hard evidence about the scope of the problem and what impact various polices may have. That's because in 1996, Congress passed a law limiting the CDC's ability to study gun violence. A provision known as the Dickey Amendment, which prohibits using public health funds to "advocate or promote gun control," had a chilling effect on virtually all government research on the topic.

That's why this study and others like it are so important, Kaufman says.

"Injuries and deaths from gunshot wounds are a public health emergency that deserve much more attention from the public, communities, and policy makers, as well as from health care providers and researchers like myself," she said. "Our study adds one more piece of the puzzle toward preventing these deaths, but there is so much more we don't know."

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What impact do state gun laws have on shooting deaths?

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As the debate over how to reduce gun violence continues in the wake of last month's deadly Parkland, Florida school shooting, new research is shedding light on the impact state laws may have on the number of gun-related deaths -- and what happens when gun control laws in one state are either stronger or weaker than their neighbors'.

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The video posted by The New York Times describes people around the world who would be heavily impacted positively with new rules, but also narrates a different point of view of people who would be negatively impacted by gun control. The video interviews many citizens who explain that they keep their weapon in their home because it makes them feel safer, and taking it away is taking away their rights.

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Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn't It Happen?

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Polls show solid support for stricter laws, especially after mass shootings. But there is also deep disagreement, staunch opposition and growing disenchantment with gun control.

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The article describes the affects on people around the world that are positively affected by gun control whether it be that they feel more safe in different environments and those who would be negatively affected by gun control if they had a hobby of hunting or were in the gun making industry.

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What Science Tells Us About the Effects of Gun Policies

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RAND researchers have systematically reviewed empirical research on the effects of 13 types of state-level gun policies on eight outcomes, including outcomes related to public health and safety and those of interest to hunters, sport shooters, and the gun industry.

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Actions of Different States Towards Gun Control

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Actions of Different States Towards Gun Control

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After the Florida shooting as well as many other shootings in previous years, The New York Times writes about what actions different states in the United States are doing to carry out laws about gun control.

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Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island signed an executive order on Monday to keep guns away from people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Credit Credit Jennifer McDermott/Associated Press

It is not just in Florida where the mass shooting at a high school is prompting lawmakers to take up gun control legislation. The same thing is happening across the country, from Washington to Vermont.

What was one of the deadliest school shootings in modern American history prompted Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island to sign an executive order on Monday to establish a policy to take guns away from people who pose a danger to themselves or others.

"If the federal government won't act, states need to do more to prevent the gun violence that has become far too common," Ms. Raimondo, a Democrat, said in signing the measure.

Many of these measures to address gun violence come as students around the nation, accustomed to inaction in Congress, have begun protesting. The most vocal have been the survivors of the shooting, which left 17 dead in Florida on Feb. 14.

Still, not all states are moving to toughen gun laws. Some states are considering action to loosen regulations. Here is a roundup of what states are considering doing or have already done.

Governor Raimondo's move by executive order was the first of its kind. Five other states - Connecticut, California, Washington, Oregon and Indiana - have passed similar "extreme risk" laws, sometimes known as "red flag" laws, having done so either in the legislature or by voter referendum. Since the Florida shooting, a dozen others are considering similar measures.

Rhode Island has also joined with Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York in a coalition to combat gun violence. The group plans to create a multistate database to trace and intercept guns used in crimes or transported across state lines.

Lawmakers have proposed a package of gun measures that defy the powerful National Rifle Association, but fall well short of the more restrictive measures, like an assault weapons ban, favored by the shooting's survivors.

Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, proposed raising the minimum age to buy assault rifles to 21 and called for a raft of measures he said could keep mentally ill or violent people from purchasing weapons and keep schools safer. Republicans in the House and Senate, who appear supportive of Mr. Scott's proposals, also called for a three-day waiting period on the purchase of those weapons, which already exists for those who wish to buy handguns.

Mr. Scott proposed $450 million in new funding for school security and $50 million in mental health funding and called for a law enforcement officer to be posted in every public school.

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Gov. Rick Scott of Florida speaking on Friday in Tallahassee, Fla. Credit Audra Melton for The New York Times

Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has done an about-face in his rural state, where hunting is a major pastime and which has some of the most lax gun laws in the country. Even after the shooting, he told the Vermont publication Seven Days that he saw no need for changing laws. "I believe our gun laws are balanced," said Mr. Scott, who has a 93 percent rating from the N.R.A.

But shortly after, a student at a Vermont high school was accused of planning a mass shooting. Mr. Scott said he was "jolted" by the prospect of such a disaster so close to home.

"The reality of how close we came to a devastating tragedy underscores the threat of violence that faces the entire country," he said. "As a result, I've been asking myself, 'Are we doing everything we can to protect our kids?'"

Now, he said, "Everything should be on the table at this point."

The State Senate is expected to pass two measures this week to tighten gun controls. The Senate Judiciary Committee last week unanimously passed one bill - to allow law enforcement to remove guns from people considered at extreme risk of harming themselves or others.

The committee was divided on the second, more controversial bill - an expansion of background checks - but in an unusual step, appeared ready to allow it to move to the Senate floor without a committee vote. The State House is likely to take up the two measures later next month.

The day after the shooting, Oregon's House passed a bill making it illegal for people convicted of domestic violence or those with restraining orders against them to possess weapons, even if they are not married to, do not live with, or do not have children with their victims.

One of the three Republicans who joined Democrats in voting for the bill said pressure from groups like the N.R.A. made him want to "crawl under my desk in the fetal position," according to The Oregonian. The State Senate passed the bill late last week; Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, is expected to sign it.

"It took the voices and outrage of youth devastated by gun violence to hold decision makers' feet to the fire," she said in a statement.

A bill filed in Washington State on Friday would raise the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle or shotgun with "tactical features" to 21, which the bill's sponsors said would align rules to buy those guns with existing rules for handguns. It would also make the sale of those weapons subject to state and federal background checks.

The bill would also create a program to allow students to report threats or potentially violent activity anonymously to the attorney general's office and would require the state to give grants to school districts for emergency response systems.

Lawmakers in Washington are also working on a ban on bump stocks, which accelerate the rate of fire on semiautomatic firearms. The legislation passed the Senate in January and the House on Friday, with a final Senate vote remaining.

Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, has appointed a committee to propose concrete actions and urged it to make its recommendations quickly.

Meanwhile, several bills, some restricting access to guns and some expanding it, are pending in the Statehouse.

Michael J. Madigan, the House speaker, said he would schedule votes this week on two gun-related bills that were filed before the shooting. One would require gun dealers to be licensed, much like car dealerships or beauty salons. The other, similar to the "extreme risk" laws in other states, allows a judge to bar a person from possessing weapons if family members or law enforcement officers ask the court to do so.

Mr. Madigan said lawmakers this week would also introduce legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase military-style assault rifles to 21.

Some bills loosening gun restrictions have advanced in the state since the Florida shooting, according to The Indianapolis Star. A Senate committee last week advanced a bill that would do away with a $125 fee for a lifetime license to carry a handgun, and would increase from four years to five years a permit that exempts holders from background checks when purchasing a handgun.

In the House, a committee passed a bill last week allowing people to carry weapons at churches that share property with schools, as long as they are working for or attending the church, and the church does not prohibit weapons. This month, before the shooting, the measure was passed by the full Senate.

The state is considering legislation to lower the age at which people can carry hidden, loaded guns in public to 18 from 21, while also requiring anyone under 21 to get a permit, including for carrying their weapons on college campuses. The State House passed the measure earlier this month. It is now before the State Senate.

The House has passed a measure that the N.R.A. calls "self-defense" legislation. It would let people carry guns on the grounds of schools or churches. The Senate is considering a bill to repeal the permitting process to allow law-abiding citizens to carry a weapon without having to get a concealed-carry permit.

After the shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, sent a letter to Mike Morath, the Texas Education Agency commissioner, ordering safety information to be distributed to all schools, and asking him to take steps to ensure that all schools have completed safety audits and that all have a multihazard emergency plan in place.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: After Shooting, Some States Tighten Rules on Guns; Others Ease Them. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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What Are States Doing About Gun Violence After the Florida Shooting?

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It is not just in Florida where the mass shooting at a high school is prompting lawmakers to take up gun control legislation. The same thing is happening across the country, from Washington to Vermont. What was one of the deadliest school shootings in modern American history prompted Gov.

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This picture shows how thousands of people join together in cities and towns around America to protest for gun control laws and to display how much these laws mean to them. They also protest to honor the lives that were affected by gun violence.

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Many around the world protest for their safety in their environment. After the large amount of gun violence incidents, the fight for gun control continues to grow. They fight for their safety till they are heard by the government. Fortunately, these protests have not gone to waste. In the video, it shows New Jersey's governor Phil Murphy signing six gun control bills into law.

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Several hundred gun control advocates and others turned out at the Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton Wednesday morning to witness Gov. Phil Murphy signing six gun control bills into law.

The bills reduce firearm magazine capacity from 15 rounds to 10; require firearm seizure from individuals posing a threat to themselves or others; outlaw armor-piercing ammunition; authorize restraining orders and firearm seizure warrants if a mental health provider warns law enforcement; require background checks for private gun sales; and tighten the definition of "justifiable need" to get a handgun carry permit.

Among the eight speakers, Alfonso Calderon, a survivor of the Parkland High School massacre in Florida.

"Thank you for taking the trip up here to New Jersey," Murphy said. "It sends a strong and clear message to our president, to the Republican leadership in Congress and to the corporate gun lobby: we are going to be a leader in the fight for common sense gun safety laws."

The 16-year old spoke with authority. He chastised Florida Gov. Rick Scott for not wearing a gay pride button in solidarity with the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando out of political expediency.

"We have one message to all of those politicians who won't wear their pride on their sleeve, who won't stand up to the NRAs and won't be decent human beings: we're going to vote them out," Calderon said.

Legislators who have been fighting for more gun control for years got a turn to make remarks. Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald spoke with particular passion.

"Is it that hard to grasp the notion that we don't need armor piercing bullets to go hunt a deer? Is it that hard to understand that when over 90 percent of the residents in this country believe that we should have mental health background checks before you buy a gun, that we had to wait this long to get where we are today?" asked Greenwald.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has been involved in the gun safety issue. He filed an amicus brief in a Massachusetts lawsuit today that seeks to cut down on the right to carry in that state.

"We can read the second amendment. We understand the second amendment, and we respect the second amendment, but that still leaves us a lot of room. It still leaves me a lot of room as chief law enforcement officer in this state to protect our residents and to take actions to protect our residents," Grewal said.

While this was happening, the New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Club filed suit Wednesday against the 10 round magazine limit arguing it's unconstitutional and that current owners of 15 round magazine clips should at least be grandfathered in.

Chief Political Correspondent

Michael Aron has been an integral part of New Jersey public television and synonymous with Trenton political coverage for decades. Referred to by colleagues as the "Dean of the Statehouse Press Corps", he currently serves as NJTV News Chief Political Correspondent and host of two popular public affairs programs, On the Record with Michael Aron and Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron. Read Full Bio
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Murphy signs six gun control measures into law | Video | NJTV News

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Several hundred gun control advocates and others turned out at the Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton Wednesday morning to witness Gov. Phil Murphy signing six gun control bills into law.

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This website that focuses mainly on the pros and cons of different topics, describes significant pros on why the government should take action into executing gun control laws. These pros include, an extreme decrease of deaths, safer communities, crimes happen when guns are stolen, and many more.

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History of Gun Control Laws
Gun control laws are just as old or older than the Second Amendment (ratified in 1791). Some examples of gun control throughout colonial America included criminalizing the transfer of guns to Catholics, enslaved people, indentured servants, and Native Americans; regulating the storage of gun powder in homes; banning loaded guns in Boston houses; and mandating participation in formal gathering of troops and door-to-door surveys about guns owned.

Guns were common in the American Colonies, first for hunting and general self-protection and later as weapons in the American Revolutionary War. Several colonies' gun laws required that heads of households (including women) own guns and that all able-bodied men enroll in the militia and carry personal firearms. Read more history...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

The Second Amendment is not an unlimited or individual right to own guns.

Further, the Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of militias to own guns, not the right of individuals to own guns. Former Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissenting opinion for District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, wrote, "the Framer's single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee 'to keep and bear arms' was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias," hence the inclusion of the phrase "well regulated militia."

Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, stated there is nothing about an individual right to bear arms in the notes about the Second Amendment when it was being drafted, discussed, or ratified; the US Supreme Court declined to rule in favor of the individual right four times between 1876 and 1939; and all law articles on the Second Amendment from 1888 to 1959 stated that an individual right was not guaranteed.
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Pro 2

More gun control laws would reduce gun deaths.

Approximately 50% of unintentional fatal shootings were self-inflicted; and most unintentional firearm deaths were caused by friends or family members.

Five women are murdered with guns every day in the United States. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 5,364 US soldiers were killed in action between Oct. 7, 2001 and Jan. 28, 2015; between 2001 and 2012 6,410 women were killed with a gun by an intimate partner in the United States.

Researchers found that a "general barrier to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States. Permit requirements and bans on sales to minors were the most effective of the regulations analyzed."

Gun licensing laws were associated with a 14% decrease in firearm homicides, while increases in firearm homicides were seen in places with right-to-carry and stand-your ground-laws.

More gun control leads to fewer suicides. When US gun ownership goes down, overall suicide rates drop; meanwhile, each 10 percentage-point increase in gun ownership is linked to a 26.9% increase in the youth suicide rate. In Indiana and Connecticut, after "red flag" laws to remove guns from people who may pose a threat were enacted, gun suicides decreased by 7.5% and 13.7% respectively, while suicides by other means did not decrease during the same time. A person who wants to kill him/herself is unlikely to commit suicide with poison or a knife when a gun is unavailable.

The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 31% of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks; and 23% of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults per year could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired.

Marjorie Sanfilippo, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Eckerd College who has researched children's behavior around guns, stated, "We put gates around swimming pools to keep children from drowning. We put safety caps on medications to keep children from poisoning themselves.... [B]ecause children are naturally curious and impulsive, and because we have shown time and again that we cannot 'gun-proof' them with education, we have a responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of children."
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Pro 3

The presence of a gun makes a conflict more likely to become violent.

The FBI found that arguments (such as romantic triangles, brawls fueled by alcohol or drugs, and arguments over money) resulted in 1,962 gun deaths (59.9% of the total).

An editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health noted, "gun-inflicted deaths [often] ensue from impromptu arguments and fights; in the US, two-thirds of the 7,900 deaths in 1981 involving arguments and brawls were caused by guns." A study published in the same journal found that "the weapons used [in altercations]... were those closest at hand." And thus, according to another study, "[r]ather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance."

Common sense gun control laws can decrease the likelihood of a violent situation turning deadly. President Ronald Reagan and others did not think the AR-15 military rifle (also called M16s by the Air Force) should be owned by civilians and, when the AR-15 was included in the assault weapons ban of 1994 (which expired on Sep. 13, 2004), the NRA supported the legislation. A Mother Jones investigation found that high-capacity magazines were used in at least 50% of the 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012.When high-capacity magazines were used in mass shootings, the death rate rose 63% and the injury rate rose 156%.
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Pro 4

A majority of adults, including gun owners, support common sense gun control such as background checks, bans on assault weapons, and bans on high-capacity magazines.

According to a Feb. 20, 2018 Quinnipiac Poll, 97% of American voters and 97% of gun owners support universal background checks. 67% support a nationwide ban on assault weapons, and 83% support mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases.

As much as 40% of all gun sales are undocumented private party gun sales that do not require a background check (aka the "gun show loophole").

53% of all adults surveyed approve of high-capacity magazine bans. 89% of adults with a gun in the home approve of laws to prevent the purchase of guns by the mentally ill, and 82% approve of banning gun sales to people on no-fly lists.

77% of Americans support requiring a license to purchase a gun.

Don Macalady, member of Hunters against Gun Violence, stated, "As a hunter and someone who has owned guns since I was a young boy, I believe that commonsense gun legislation makes us all safer. Background checks prevent criminals and other dangerous people from getting guns."

Many would like to see the U.S. enact more laws like other countries, citing the fact that countries with restrictive gun control laws have lower gun homicide and suicide rates than the United States. Both Switzerland and Finland require gun owners to acquire licenses and pass background checks that include mental and criminal records, among other restrictions and requirements. In 2007 Switzerland ranked number 3 in international gun ownership rates with 45.7 guns per 100 people (about 3,400,000 guns total). In 2009 Switzerland had 24 gun homicides (0.31 deaths per 100,000 people) and 253 gun suicides (3.29 deaths per 100,000 people). Finland ranked fourth in international gun ownership rates with 45.3 guns per 100 people (about 2,400,000 guns total). In 2007 Finland had 23 (0.43 deaths per 100,000 people) gun homicides and 172 gun suicides (4.19 deaths per 100,000 people).
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Con 1

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."

Lawrence Hunter, Chairman of Revolution PAC, stated, "The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights."
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Con 2

Gun control laws are discriminatory and infringe on citizens' rights

Current gun control laws are frequently aimed at inner city, poor, black communities who are perceived as more dangerous than white gun owners. Charles Gallagher, Chair of Sociology at LaSalle University, stated that some gun control laws are still founded on racial fears: "Whites walking down Main Street with an AK-47 are defenders of American values; a black man doing the same thing is Public Enemy No. 1."

Background checks and micro-stamping are an invasion of privacy. Background checks require government databases that keep personal individual information on gun owners, including name, addresses, mental health history, criminal records, and more. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worried that Senator Harry Reid's 2013 proposed background check legislation (the bill failed 54-46) would have allowed the government to keep databases of gun purchases indefinitely, creating a "worry that you're going to see searches of the databases and an expansion for purposes that were not intended when the information was collected." Micro-stamping similarly requires a database of gun owners and the codes their personal guns would stamp on cartridge cases. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that they would oppose any legislation that infringes "on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance."

Gun control laws infringe upon the right to self-defense and deny people a sense of safety. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would "make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families." Nelson Lund, Professor at George Mason University School of Law, stated, "The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life" and "many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals." A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. Even Senator Dianne Feinstein, a gun control advocate, carried a concealed gun when her life was threatened and her home attacked by the New World Liberation Front in the 1970s.

Gun control laws, especially those that try to ban "assault weapons," infringe upon the right to own guns for hunting and sport. In 2011, there were 13.7 million hunters 16 years old or older in the United States, High-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns are used to hunt and in target shooting tournaments each year. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, "So-called 'Assault weapons' are more often than not less powerful than other hunting rifles. The term 'assault weapon' was conjured up by anti-gun legislators to scare voters into thinking these firearms are something out of a horror movie... [T]he Colt AR-15 and Springfield M1A, both labeled 'assault weapons,' are the rifles most used for marksmanship competitions in the United States. And their cartridges are standard hunting calibers, useful for game up to and including deer." According to a Feb. 2013 Pew Research report, 32% of gun owners owned guns for hunting and 7% owned guns for target or sport shooting.
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Con 3

Gun control laws simply do not work.

Gun control efforts have proved ineffective. According to David Lampo, Publications Director of the Cato Institute, "there is no correlation between waiting periods and murder or robbery rates." Banning high-capacity magazines will not necessarily deter crime because even small gun magazines can be changed in seconds.The "gun show loophole" is virtually nonexistent because commercial dealers, who sell the majority of guns at shows and elsewhere, are bound by strict federal laws. According to a Mar. 10, 2016 Lancet study, most state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm death rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun death rates.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people). The country has only one legal gun store (the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales), compared to at least 63,709 legal gun stores and pawn shops in the United States as of Feb. 10, 2014. Mexico's gun store is on a secure military base and customers must present a valid ID, go through a metal detector, and turn over cellphones and cameras to guards. To actually buy a gun, customers have to show proof of honest income, provide references, pass a criminal background check, prove any military duties were completed with honor, and be fingerprinted and photographed. If allowed to purchase a gun, the customer may buy only one gun (choosing from only .38 caliber pistols or lower) and one box of bullets. Between 2006 and 2010, Mexico's one gun shop sold 6,490 guns, yet as of 2012, Mexicans own about 15,000,000 guns, or about 13.5 guns per 100 people.

The main reason gun control doesn't work is because laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns or breaking laws. Of 62 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012, 49 of the shooters used legally obtained guns. Collectively, 143 guns were possessed by the killers with about 75% obtained legally. A Secret Service analysis found that of 24 mass shootings in 2019 at least 10 (42%) involved illegally possessed guns.

The logical conclusion is that gun control laws do not deter crime; gun ownership deters crime. A study in Applied Economics Letters found that "assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level" and "states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murders." While gun ownership doubled in the twentieth century, the murder rate decreased. Journalist John Stossel explained, "Criminals don't obey the law... Without the fear of retaliation from victims who might be packing heat, criminals in possession of these [illegal] weapons now have a much easier job... As the saying goes, 'If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.'"

More gun control is not needed; education about guns and gun safety is needed to prevent accidental gun deaths. 95% of all US gun owners believe that children should learn about gun safety. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc (SAAMI), stated, "Whether in the field, at the range or in the home, a responsible and knowledgeable gun owner is rarely involved in a firearms accident of any kind." According to Kyle Wintersteen, Managing Editor of Guns and Ammo, studies show that "children taught about firearms and their legitimate uses by family members have much lower rates of delinquency than children in households without guns" and "children introduced to guns associate them with freedom, security, and recreation-not violence." [82] [85] [154]
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Con 4

Gun control laws give too much power to the government and may result in government tyranny and the government taking away all guns from citizens.

57% of people surveyed by Pew Research in Feb. 2013 said that gun control laws would "give too much power to the government over the people."

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre stated, "if you look at why our Founding Fathers put it [the Second Amendment] there, they had lived under the tyranny of King George and they wanted to make sure that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny."

Concurring, Alex Jones, radio host, stated, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting, it's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs... 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!"

Marco Rubio (R-FL), US Senator, speaking about gun control laws during his 2016 presidential campaign, stated, "If God forbid, ISIS visits our life, our neighborhood, our school, any part of us, the last thing standing, the last line of defense could very well be our ability to protect ourselves."
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Did You Know?

1. A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer, and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer.

2. The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks.

3. The Centers for Disease Control listed firearms as the #12 cause of all deaths between 1999 and 2015, representing 1.3% of total deaths. They were also the #1 method of death by homicide (67.3% of all homicides) and by suicide (51.9% of all suicides).

4. Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders (9.97 gun homicides per 100,000 people) compared to the United States that had 9,146 gun homicides (2.97 per 100,000 people).

5. Carrying a concealed handgun in public has been permitted in all 50 states since 2013, when Illinois became the last state to enact concealed carry legislation.

6. Five women a day are killed by guns in America. A woman's risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute.

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Proponents say the Second Amendment is not an unlimited right to own guns. Opponents say the amendment protects individual gun ownership.

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The article below gives more pros of gun control. They mainly talk about how the rate of deaths caused by guns will go down, and they amount of crimes will decrease. This will be because of the stricter rules about possessing a gun. It also includes many videos from government officials, and citizens of the United States about the topic.

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9 Principal Pros and Cons of Gun Control

navajocodetalkersadmin on August 17, 2015 - 6:44 pm in Pros and Cons

One of the most heated and debated issues in today's world is that of gun control. There have been high numbers of deaths involving fire arms in the United States, and people are beginning to take a stand against the violence and look for ways to solve the problems. Gun control is inflicting stricter and more harsh regulations on owning and carrying fire arms, which many people believe is the answer. However, arguers believe that the right to have guns is part of every American's constitutional rights.

The Pros of Gun Control

1. Lower The Amount Of Gun Related Deaths
As of today, it is fairly easy to get your hands on a fire arm. If the laws and regulations where made to be much stricter and more regulated, then the amount of people who die from gun violence could possibly go down drastically. Having to jump through a bunch of hoops will likely deter anyone looking to obtain a weapon to commit a crime.

2. They're Rarely For Self Defense
There are hundreds of thousand assaults that occur each and every year, however, out of all of these cases less than one percent of people used a gun to defend themselves. The reason that someone owns a gun may be out of self defense, but it is much too often used for other things, like crimes.

3. Majority Of Mass Murders Use Legal Weapons
Large capacity magazines, fast shooting guns, and things like silencers make it all too easy for someone to inflict large amounts of damage to big groups of people. This causes horrible devastation, and many people believe that it can be avoided if gun control was more strict.

4. Less Suicides
The big majority of suicides that occur in the United States are done with a gun. These guns are legally bought and owned. If there is a much longer waiting period for purchasing weapons, and a more thorough check, then many of these suicides can be successfully avoided.

The Cons of Gun Control

1. Criminals Will Break The Law
Illegal guns are a huge trade and business in the United States. Even if gun control laws where made much more strict, these criminals would still be able to obtain illegal weapons and use them to inflict harm and commit violent crimes. The only difference would be that the people who are not criminals would not have the ability to defend themselves.

2. Takes Power From The People
It is a constitutional right to be able to have weapons to defend yourself, including guns. While some restrictions should certainly be in place, if the government is given too much power over these types of things it would be easier for them to attempt to take all guns from citizens. This would leave the citizens open to abuse from the government, and leave them vulnerable for a fully police state.

3. Education Is The Answer
More harsh gun control laws are not needed. What is needed, however, is a greater focus on education about firearms. We should teach people from an early age the damage that they can do, how to properly and safely use them, and the steps to take to make sure that they are safely used and stored. Education is the key.

4. Helps Deter Crime
The biggest goal is to help lower the rate of crimes that take place, which gun control laws will not do at all. Rather than not allowing regular, law abiding people to own guns. If a criminal knows that a person has a gun, they are much less likely to attempt a crime. If criminals know that people no longer have guns, then the crime rates would greatly increase.

5. Creates Hostility
In today's society, there is already quite a bit of animosity between the people and the government. The government is trying to obtain too much power over the personal choices of citizens. By creating more gun control laws, this hostility is sure to rise. When tension mounts, it will eventually erupt in the most unpleasant of ways.

Important Facts About Gun Control

Over 80 percent of all gun owners said that owning a gun makes them feel much safer in their home.

Some of the countries with the strictest gun control laws, such as Mexico, have the highest levels of crime.

A woman's chances of being killed is increased 5 times if there is a gun present during a domestic issue.

There are currently 270 million registered firearms owned in the United States.

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9 Principal Pros and Cons of Gun Control | Navajo Code Talkers

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navajocodetalkersadmin on August 17, 2015 - 6:44 pm in Pros and Cons One of the most heated and debated issues in today's world is that of gun control.

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Like other pro arguments about gun laws, this video targets the fact that the more enforced rules there are including background checks, only trained officials should carry a gun, increasing the age that a person can legally buy a gun, all contribute to the idea that the amount of losses each year will not be nearly as high as it is now.

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This video describes how guns are not the only thing that puts people in danger around the world. They add to this by explaining if people will really feel safe after enforcing gun control laws and if it will really have an impact. It gives a different side of the social issue that has been a popular argument for many years.

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This article explains the statistics of the deaths caused from different mass shootings as well as talking about the disadvantages of gun control. They focus on how there are other ways and more weapons to use to commit crimes and how gun control might not change the rate of crimes. It also explains how the suicide rates will not decrease when enforcing gun control laws so that issue will not resolve itself.

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On October 1, 2017, 58 people were killed and 546 were injured when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon equipped with a bump stock from a hotel suite in Las Vegas.

On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 58 were wounded when Omar Mateen took firearms onto the property of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza took firearms into an elementary school and killed 20 children, between the ages of 6 and 7. He also killed six staff members at the school.

On July 20, 2012, James Holmes took firearms into a movie theater during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises and killed 12 people and injured another 58 more. 12 additional injuries occurred during the response to the shooting.

On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris brought firearms to their high school and killed 13 people before taking their own lives.

The history of mass shootings in the United States is one that tells a dark chapter. In 1873, a group of white citizens in Louisiana killed and hung up to 150 African-American citizens. In 1890, US soldiers took machine guns into a Lakota village and killed 200 men, women, and children. In 1921, white citizens in Tulsa set African-American neighborhoods on fire and then shot at those who fled, killing upwards of 300 people.

It's long overdue to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of gun control in a meaningful way. Here are some of the key points to think about.

List of the Advantages of Gun Control

1. Most mass shootings in the US come from legally purchased firearms.
Mother Jones reviewed over 70 mass shootings in the United States that covered more than 3 decades of incidents. They discovered that in nearly 75% of the incidents they looked at, the firearms used to take lives were legally purchased. By creating more restrictions on legal purchases, it may be possible to reduce the number of mass casualty incidents that occur.

2. Having access to a gun increases the risk of violence.
According to a 2004 study by Linda Dahlberg, simply having a firearm in a home increases the risk of a homicide or a suicide occurring. That increase remains no matter how many guns are owned or how safely they are locked in a gun safe. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study by Arthur Kellerman that shows people living in a home face a risk of homicide that is 40 times higher than people in a home without a firearm. The risk of a firearm-related suicide is 90 times higher when a gun is in a home.

3. People who shouldn't own guns can still purchase them.
Private-sale exemptions exist under US law that do not require a background check on the individual. The Brady Bill states that private sellers can sell a firearm to an unlicensed resident of the state where they live as long as they do not know or have a reasonable cause to believe that person should be prohibited from owning a firearm. Although some state laws have closed this loophole, it is still possible for people who are restricted from owning firearms to still purchase one. Gun control legislation could stop this from happening.

4. Gun control does not require confiscation.
There is a right to bear arms for self-defense in the United States, protected by state laws and the Constitution. The US Supreme Court has struck down handgun restriction laws because of this right. Gun control doesn't need to involve confiscation or restriction. Something as simple as licensing and requiring an understanding of how to use it could reduce gun violence. Funds could even be set aside so that licensing and safety classes are low-cost or free.

5. It could reduce accidental injuries.
Unintentional shootings caused the deaths of over 600 people in 2010. From 2005-2010, more than 1,300 people who were the victim of an unintentional shooting were under the age of 25. Over 30% of unintentional deaths caused by firearms could be prevented by the addition of a loading indicator and a childproof safety lock. Even in gun control legislation included safety measures alone, lives could be saved.

List of the Disadvantages of Gun Control

1. Gun control legislation would likely create a black market.
If someone wants to own a gun, they're going to own one. That is a pretty basic principle that applies to legal and illegal gun owners. Gun control legislation attempts to create more safety by creating more loops for legal owners to jump through to own a firearm. There will always be people who steal firearms or alter information on background checks to circumvent laws. Gun control legislation would likely create a separate black market for ownership for those who simply want a self-defense option.

2. Fewer guns doesn't change the condition of the heart.
Gun control laws have arguably caused gun violence incidents to reduce around the world, but alternative weapons are still used to commit crime. Knife attacks, vehicle attacks, and homemade explosives can do just as much damage as a gun can, and in some instances more damage, when put into the right hands.

3. Most gun-related deaths in the US are from suicides, not homicides.
Out of the 10,000+ firearm-relate deaths that occur every year in the United States, more than 7,000 of them are suicides. That data point shows a need to improve access to mental health services, community supports, and other resources that can help people in crisis.

4. People fear guns because they don't understand them.
Guns are often feared not because of what they can do, but because of what they represent to an individual. Most people own a firearm because they use it as a tool or for a sport. By getting to know a firearm and learning how to use it responsibly, being around a gun doesn't need to be a fearful experience.

5. It won't change the value of a human life.
Gun violence occurs because there is a lack of respect for the value of human life. Arguments devolve into violence because of an emotional reaction. Gangs use gun violence as a way to establish territorial control because they feel like their lives aren't being valued. Some might say gun violence is a heart problem, but it is a value problem. The US Constitution speaks of equality for all. That should be what is addressed instead of a person's access to firearms.

The advantages and disadvantages of gun control are divisive. Some see them as controversial. Others see it as a pointless conversation. The bottom line is this: every person offers an important perspective that deserves to be shared. Our stories, combined with the proven facts about guns and firearm violence, can lead us toward the right course of action.

How do you feel about the idea of gun control?

Blog Post Author Credentials
Louise Gaille is the author of this post. She received her B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. In addition to being a seasoned writer, Louise has almost a decade of experience in Banking and Finance. If you have any suggestions on how to make this post better, then go here to contact our team.

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10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Gun Control

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On October 1, 2017, 58 people were killed and 546 were injured when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon equipped with a bump stock from a hotel suite in Las Vegas. On June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 58 were wounded when Omar Mateen took firearms onto the property of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

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This article talks about how if more gun control laws were created and implemented, than it would violate the second amendment which protects an individual's rights to own a gun. On this site, it also gives more links for reasons why others should oppose gun control.

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Every year in the United States more and more people die from gun violence. Over the last fifty years, around 40,000 people have passed from the act of a gun. The article by The New York Times, writes how every year the rate of deaths increase from guns whether it be suicide or homicide. This shows the readers that gun control should be taken seriously to prevent these losses for the future.

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Last year was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States. While public mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas make up a small percentage of firearm deaths, they have changed the national conversation. Credit... Zackary Canepari for The New York Times

More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.'s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.

When adjusted for population size, the rate of gun deaths in 2017 also increased slightly to 12 deaths for every 100,000 people, up from 11.8 per 100,000 in 2016. By this measure, last year had the highest rate of firearm deaths since the mid-1990s, the data showed.

It was the third consecutive year that the rate of firearm deaths rose in the United States, after remaining relatively steady throughout the 2000s and the first part of this decade.

"It is significant that after a period of relative stability, now the rates are rising again," Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the C.D.C.'s National Center for Health Statistics, said in a phone interview.

Guns and ammunition for sale at Big 5 Sporting Goods in Sacramento in May. Credit... Andrew Burton for The New York Times

While there are signs that the movement to prevent gun violence gained momentum this year - state legislatures passed a surge of new gun control laws, gun control groups outspent the National Rifle Association in the midterm election cycle and the medical community recently took on the N.R.A. over an assertion that doctors should "stay in their lane" on gun policy - the findings underscore that even after such efforts ramped up after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, gun violence continued its dizzying assault on America.

Suicides have historically made up most deaths by firearm in the United States, research shows.

In 2017, about 60 percent of gun deaths were suicides, while about 37 percent were homicides, according to an analysis of the C.D.C. data by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a public health think tank. (The group is a sister organization of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, an advocacy group that works to oppose the N.R.A.)

Suicide over all has been on the rise for more than a decade and is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, according to the health statistics center. But researchers say firearm homicide has ticked upward recently and also helps explain the rise in gun deaths since 2015.

Among other public health problems, drug overdose deaths have also been surging, a trend that continued in 2017. About 70,000 people died from drug overdoses last year - almost double the number that died from guns, the health statistics center reported.

Mr. Anderson said there could be a correlation between drugs and gun deaths. While the gun death rate is higher than it has been in some time, he noted that it was even higher in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which corresponded with heroin and crack cocaine epidemics.

"Now with the fentanyl issue and at the height of the drug overdose epidemic, now we are seeing rises in gun deaths," Mr. Anderson said.

Supporters held a gun flag as President Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Houston in October. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

Dakota Jablon, who analyzed the C.D.C. data for the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, noticed another trend underlying the data: state-by-state variations, which she believes could reflect differences in gun laws.

For example, Kansas, which received an F from the national advocacy group Giffords Law Center's gun law scorecard, had increases in both its firearm suicide and homicide rates over the past decade. New York, which was given an A-minus, had both rates decrease, according to her analysis of C.D.C. data.

"Some states are doing incredible work," Ms. Jablon said. "They are passing these lifesaving policies that are clearly working."

Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician who is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, said that the rise in firearm deaths was a result of "a national unwillingness to take this problem seriously."

In 1996, under pressure from the N.R.A., Congress stripped the C.D.C. of its budget to study the health effects of shootings and prohibited the agency from advocating or promoting gun control.

"We have decided as a country not to do research on this problem, so we don't understand it," said Dr. Wintemute, a leading researcher on gun violence who identified himself as a member of the N.R.A.

A gunman killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017. Mass shootings have occurred recently at schools, music venues and houses of worship. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

But recently, mass shootings - at schools and music venues and houses of worship - have rocked the American consciousness. Though public mass shootings make up no more than 1 percent of all firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said, they have changed the dynamic of the conversation.

"I've been working on this problem full time since the early '80s and there has never been a time like the present in which everybody feels some personal sense of risk," he said.

This spring, student activists led March for Our Lives protests across the country, after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 dead. More recently, doctors weighed in after the N.R.A. took aim at their profession in a tweet: "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane." Physicians, in turn, shared painful stories about treating gunshot victims.

In an interview at the Tedmed event in November, the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, defended the right of doctors to talk about gun violence.

"It is absolutely within physicians' lanes to talk to their patients about ways that they can be safer," said Dr. Adams, an anesthesiologist by training who has worked on gunshot victims and is a gun owner himself. "And that includes seatbelts, that includes bicycle helmets and that includes having a discussion about whether or not you have firearms in your home and whether or not you're keeping them safe."

Despite the recent increase in firearm deaths, Dr. Wintemute said he had reason to be optimistic for the future.

"For the first time in our history, everybody has a sense of personal involvement," he said, adding, "That universal sense of personal risk might just lead to an increase in willingness to do something about the problem."

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Nearly 40,000 People Died From Guns in U.S. Last Year, Highest in 50 Years (Published 2018)

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Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Give this article Give this article Give this article More people died from firearm injuries in the United States last year than in any other year since at least 1968, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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United States Compared to Other Countries

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United States Compared to Other Countries

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As shown in the picture, it is clear that the United States has a greater amount of deaths caused by guns out of every 100,000 people. The picture shows how out of many countries that deal with gun violence, the United States needs to improve and enforce gun control laws so that these statistics decrease.

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United States and Amount of Deaths Caused By Gun Violence

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United States and Amount of Deaths Caused By Gun Violence

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The picture below displays how the total amount of deaths each year by this deadly weapon increases. The years 2012, 2013, and 2014 kept around the same amount of deaths but that is still unacceptable and there should not be so many losses. However, in 2015, and 2016 the rate of deaths went up by around 3,000 people. This shows how gun violence is becoming more dangerous over the years and needs more laws to control these dangers to keep others safe.

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This picture shows the definition of gun control along with the hashtag "Never Again" to represent the many mass shootings that have happened because of guns.