I have never really taken an
interest in the topics of guns or gun control until about a year ago for of a
few reasons; one being my boyfriend loves everything gun-oriented and owns 6
himself, and the other being all the nationwide shootings and talks about gun
violence and gun control. I started at a
place I thought was pretty specific, should assault rifles be banned? I ended up on a completely different gun
subject, jumping from history of gun laws to background checks to conspiracy
theories that President Obama wants to ban all guns. I am pretty excited to look into such a
current and interesting topic that I stumbled upon which is the strengths and
weaknesses of President Obama’s Now is the Time Action Plan.
In the small amount of research I
have done so far on the flaws and loopholes of gun control laws and regulations
we currently have in place, I’ve mostly found flaws. I haven’t read a law and
thought, “Wow! That’s a good law.” Most
of the flaws I have seen revolve around background checks for firearms. There are a TON of loopholes and only 40% of
gun sales use background checks, which is frightening, making it seem very easy
to get guns into the wrong hands. Frankly, I have no idea how this hasn’t been
an issue yet.
A man named Bill Whittle gave a
speech in the State of the Union Address on gun control, and his speech alone
is why I chose the topic of guns. When
starting his speech he said,
“…. Now some people,
many of you in this room, want to place the blame for this horror on 30-round
magazines and semi-automatic rifles. You
want to blame something, ANYTHING that we can control; but, what we really want
to ban is violence, and murder, and insanity.
And we don’t talk about that though, because deep in our hearts, each of
us know that violence, and murder, and insanity are built into the human
condition, and likely always will be.(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
My prediction of
my views at the end of analyzing Obama’s action plan is I think it is a short
term fix to ease peoples’ minds that are scared because of all the horrific gun
violence in the past year. Hopefully this action plan has more strengths
than weaknesses to plug up the holes in the gun control laws already put in
place.
Mock, Geffory. "Has the Brady Act Been Successful? | Duke Today." Duke Today. Duke University, 1 Sept. 2000. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
Thompson, Mike. "Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Recommendations." Scribd. U.S. House of Representatives, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
White House. "The White House - President Barack Obama." Now Is the Time. The White House, 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
Gura, David. "The Gun-show Loophole: Not about Gun Shows, and Not a Loophole." Marketplace.org. Marketplace Morning Report, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
MacBradaigh, Matt. "PolicyMic." PolicyMic. Policymic, Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Aug.
Anderson, Jim. "East Metro." Tran Case Exposes Flaws in Gun Background Checks. Star Tribune, 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
Cooper, Michael, Michael S. Schmidt, and Michael Lou. "Loopholes in Gun Laws Allow Buyers to Skirt Checks." New York Times, 10 Apr. 2013. Web.
State of the Union. The Best 7 Minutes of Gun Control Speech! YouTube. YouTube, 31 Mar. 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013.
Great start, Jennifer, and lots of good information in your links! I will be interested in how how your theories evolve as you continue. A good question to ask is : Who benefits if the loopholes stay in place -- and do they support some of our legislators financially?
ReplyDeleteI'm a gun owner from Alaska and I love my guns. An idea for you might be to look into the ammunition shortage. Prices are getting higher all over the country. Lots of people are also trying to switch to "reloading" which is taking used gun shells and replacing the powder and the bullet. But even the supplies for reloading are getting more and more scarce.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic and a good read. Maybe you could connect certain laws to violent outbreaks. As in, which loopholes proved to be the most problematic. You have probably already watched it, but Bowling for Columbine is the most insightful movie about gun control I've ever seen. It gets to the heart of the issue more than any other movie has dared. Since it's a documentary it's a little boring at first, but it takes off after the first half hour.
ReplyDeleteAs a foreigner, i really afraid of the gun owners if they gonna shoot me sometimes. but as i get used to it, i started to thinking about going some shot places to actually feel the fun of shooting.
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