Deeds of Violence

            The great poet Homer once wrote, “The blade itself incites to deeds of violence.” However, today the blade has become obsolete. Today, we have weapons that can deliver death far more efficiently than any sword, weapons that can be placed in the hands of anyone to have devastating potential, weapons that, for some reason, are fully available to tempt the general public. Ladies and gentlemen, the topic of this speech is guns and why they are not regulated enough in our society.

            On Friday, what is now being called the second greatest school shooting in US history, occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. The son of an elementary school teacher, an angry and deranged young man, decided to take his mother’s life as well as all that she loved. He burst into the school and, using primarily two 9mm pistols, killed 27 people including 18 kindergarten children. The gunman’s girlfriend is also missing. According to the FBI definition, there have been 19 of these mass shootings in the past five years, that’s one every four months, and, when totaling up the casualties, public places have become as dangerous as a Middle Eastern war zone. This is not how society should operate. We should not have to be afraid to go to the mall or to the movies, and we should not have to live with the threat of these weapons and the potential insane people can give them. As constituents, it is our job to create public momentum for this issue and help ensure that no community is damaged as Newtown, Connecticut was.

            The purpose of a gun is to kill. That is its primary and its only function. When a person buys a gun, the only intent they could have is to kill. They may want to be able to kill in their defense, practice killing in a sport or a shooting range, or kill animals while hunting. These are the three legitimate civilian uses for a gun. However, as we all know, guns are used for much more than that, such as murder and suicide. One of the main reasons for this is the availability of guns that are designed for activities not included in our list above.

The most prominent of these weapons is the pistol. The pistol is the most common form of firearm owned by an American citizen, and yet, of all firearms, it is the most limited in its capabilities. It is relatively inaccurate and lacks the power of the rifle, making it a poor choice for hunting and shooting sports. These shortcomings also make the pistol ineffective for home defense. A friend of my father was drunk after a party once and his friends took the keys to his car so he couldn’t drive home. When he woke up the next morning he began banging on the door of his friends house demanding the return of his car keys. It was the wrong house, and if the man on the other side had a pistol instead of a shotgun, the door probably would have stopped the bullet. A home can be defended just fine without a pistol. This leaves us with the question of what is a pistol really good for? The answer is to attack people. The handgun excels at being concealed and killing people at close range quickly and efficiently. Such a weapon should only be allowed in the hands of military and law personnel, not in the hands of civilians, who should have no reason to kill someone.

The second highly unregulated weapon in our society is the semi-automatic rifle. First of all, a semi-automatic weapon is not much of a step bellow a fully automatic weapon, which is already banned in some parts of the country. If you go down to the Arms and Archery store on Southland drive, you can buy a semi-automatic rifle and, for just a few dollars more, a small kit to make it fully automatic, all while staying within the law. This is hardly a regulation of either type of incredibly dangerous weapon. One of the major reasons some mass shootings manage to be so effective is because of the use of automatic weapons, which are designed to kill large numbers of people as quickly as possible. Civilians have no use for such weapons, for bolt action and single shot rifles have the same accuracy and power for both hunting and sport shooting, and I doubt anyone here even knows a person whose home has been attacked by a force requiring a semi-automatic rifle. A shotgun or bolt action rifle will satisfy all the requirements of recreational and legal gun use, while weapons such as pistols and semi-automatic weapons have no place in any of these activities. Any gun in a household, as George W. Bush’s former speech writer David Frum asserted, is more likely to be pulled from the dead hands of a troubled adolescent or a clumsy child than effectively used to defend a home. However, some citizens do feel the need for self-defense, and their wishes should not be completely disregarded. The weapons that really need to be regulated more are pistols and all forms of automatic weapons as to maximize public safety without infringing on the activities and rights of other Americans.

            Legislation that regulates firearms has proven effective around the world. Israel and Switzerland are often cited by gun advocates as places with widespread gun ownership and incredibly little gun violence. This is due to their effective legislation that requires gun owners to declare a reason for having a gun, such as being a military officer or in a profession at risk of gun violence. This incredibly strict license must be renewed every six months, and Israel rejects 40% of its gun applicants, the highest rate in the world. Also, both countries have begun to keep their soldiers’ weapons at a military base in order to reduce the risk of gun accidents in the household. The Washington Post states that this new regulation has decreased suicide among soldiers by 60%, suggesting that if people have access to a gun, they may commit suicide, but if they don’t, they may not. Also, the Israeli Interior Ministry tracks all registered guns, making people think twice before firing a gun that can be directly linked back to them. Many people in these countries do own guns, but the tight regulation on who owns them is the main reason why there is so very little gun violence. We are in need of similar regulation in our country to help curb the gun violence in the US.

            John Howard, an ally of George W. Bush and right wing prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, implemented a ban on automatic rifles, semi-automatic rifles, and shotguns in response to a massacre in Tasmania that left 35 dead. The Australian government also issued a buyback of the newly banned guns. Time magazine states that there were 11 mass shootings in Australia in the decade before the law. There have been none since. Also, a study done by the Australian National University found that firearm homicide rate fell by 59% and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65%. But here’s the kicker: the non-firearm homicide and suicide rates did not go up. Even more incredible, the suicide rate fell faster in areas that bought back guns faster than areas that bought back guns slower. This data, supported by a study from the Harvard school of public health that asserts that more guns lead to more homicides, provides strong evidence for the positive correlation between guns and firearm violence. With such high rates of firearm violence here in the US, it is imperative that we follow the examples of other industrialized nations and effectively reduce gun violence.

            In light of the most recent mass shooting in Connecticut, the exceptional American gun violence now has political and social precedence. Now is the time to implement effective gun control policies that will help curb these horrendous casualties. Regulations modeled after those in other countries to prevent the common person from having firearms that have no place in a modern society will only improve the US homicide and suicide rate. Contact our representatives and tell them that a change is needed, and it is needed now, before more innocents are killed in another tragedy. Guns incite to deeds of gun violence, and without guns, violence will subside, and society will improve.