Celine Rodriguez
English 12
Mr.Jones
3/20/18
Senior Defense Essay: Does My Life Have More Rights Than A Gun?
Columbine. 15 dead. Sandy Hook. 26 dead. Marjory Stoneman. 17 dead. This is the reality that students in the United States have to face everyday. The fear of not knowing which one of your peers is mentally ill to the point where they will bring a gun to school and commit the next mass shooting. The fear of going to school not knowing if you will die today. The first things that came to your mind when reading those names were shootings, massacres and dead innocent students. Students should not be in fear while learning in schools they should be focused on the lesson not if one of their classmates will take out a gun .The issue in hand is how the government is handling the problem that is affecting students all across the United States right now. All school shooters were proven to be mentally challenged or ill. The government is doing little to nothing in regards to the mentally ill who can freely walk into a gun shop and buy a firearm because there are no in-depth background checks. In fact both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold the Columbine shooters were mentally ill. Dylan Klebold was identified by FBI specialists as a psychopath yet he was able to obtain a firearm and conduct one of the worst mass shootings in the United States history. There should be no debate on whether the use of firearms and how they affect individuals. Mass shooters could be stopped if the government would fund a mental health screening bill in order for mentally incapacitated people to not be able to own a firearm.
The government has no database identifying the mentally ill who should be unable to buy and possess a firearm making it possible for psychotic and schizophrenic person to own such a hazardous thing. Yes, a person can be blocked from buying a gun but under very little conditions which can easily be surpassed. Now you may ask yourself how does the government block a person with a mental illness from buying a gun? Well under federal law a person can be put in a database that will block them from being able to buy a firearm. In order to be in this database you could either have voluntarily committed yourself to a mental hospital and deemed mentally incompetent to carry a firearm or if a court declares you mentally incompetent as well. This however is not enough for gun shops to know if a person is truly incompetent to handle a firearm. Gun shop employees are not trained to know if a person is capable of handling a firearm. They do not have a PhD in Philosophy A person with a clean bill of health and no prior record could be the next mass shooter. Your neighbor could be the next mass shooter. Your child could be the next mass shooter. You could be the next mass shooter. So therefore it is the government's duty to protect all citizens from this devious behavior that goes unnoticed everyday.
Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. These are the names of only a few of the hundred of unarmed black citizens who have been killed by racist cowardly cops. These innocent people were armed by nothing but their skin color. In the past decade there has been an epidemic of police brutality because cops put their prejudice before their conscience. To this day police abuse remains one of the most serious human rights violation in the United States. Police brutality is a crime that should not go without punishment. Cops are armed with the intent of protecting citizens and if and only if an officer has a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or deadly force being imposed against the officer or somebody else, then they’re justified in using deadly force. However 13% of deadly shootings by police were justified but the other 87% were not. In seven cases, no officers were charged, and may never be. For example, in the case of Keith L. Scott, 43, who was shot during a confrontation with the police in the parking lot of his apartment complex in Charlotte, N.C., the prosecutor decided not to charge Officer Brentley Vinson, saying that the officer’s use of deadly force was justified. Nine out of ten cases in which a Caucasian police officer shoots and kills an innocent black person goes justified by the court. Only the cases where there is substantial evidence and proof of foul play gets the officer charged and even then the most that they would get is a “Negligent Homicide” charge. Racist cops have their own personal agendas to kill and brutalize people of color. A issue that has been going on not for decades but centuries. The government fails to realize that they are just feeding the racist thirst of white supremacists by allowing them to own guns. This is the fear that people of color live with in the United States. “Will I be next?” The question that millions of African Americans and Hispanics ask themselves everyday. “Will I make it home today?” Another question that they should not be asking themselves. Now this recent surge of police brutality has raised the question of “Should police officers possess a firearm?”. Some may argue that due to the given number of firearms available in American society, and the fact that no one will ever get rid of all of them, very few police officers would be willing to work unarmed. Now if the government were to pass a gun control bill misuse of firearms would not be such a prevalent issue in today’s society. 150 million guns would be approximately 40% of the guns in private ownership in the US. Yes 150 million guns are in the possession of all types of people who have not had any type of background check in order to obtain these firearms. To put it in prospective that equates to every other household in the United States. Imagine if people decided to go on a civil war. That would be the end of this country. Assault weapons should not be in the possession of regular people.There should be no reason for a person to own a firearm that could fire over one hundred ammunition in less than sixty seconds. The United States government has to rethink and reevaluate the choices they have made towards the Second amendment.
For a moment let’s forget about all these deaths that have happened miles away and focus on New York City. 176 teenagers ages 15-24 died in the past year. We don’t see that in the national news. Why? Because those kids that die in New York City to gun violence are just another statistic. Just another black or hispanic kid that got shot at in the ‘hood. Six of my own friends have been taken away from me by gun violence in the past two years. These weren’t your straight A’s students these were regular kids from the hood just like me. Lewis Escobar which we called “LA” was only 17 when he got shot down early September as payback for beating up his rival. Want to know his last words to his best friend hours before he got killed?. “It don’t feel like I’m living. If I don’t get home, tell my mom I love her and I’m sorry for all the worries I put her through.”. LA got killed over a petty fight by someone his age. Lewis was the funniest most charismatic boy I knew. Every time I logged into Facebook I knew I would get a good laugh at his funny jokes. This should not be happening he was only a teenager starting to live life. How about Elliot who we called “Nugget” out of endearment. He was only 20 when he died leaving behind a little boy and his girlfriend. Shot to death while I was standing next to him. My own friend i had to watch while paramedics tried their hardest to keep him alive. . Have you ever had someone drop dead next to you? I doubt it. What if the bullet would of went a couple inches to the right? That would’ve been my life taken away at 15. Just another statistic of a female hispanic dead like Alyssa Rodriguez who was shot several times after an altercation with her ex boyfriend that left her dead. She was only 17. Or what about Javon Craig who was killed only 47 steps away from where his older brother had died 8 years ago? All over a dice game that he had won. All teenagers who have died to homicide have been black or hispanic. ALL ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR. Teenagers should not be getting killed every other day. The City of New York needs stricter gun control laws passed in order to stop these senseless crimes. This will not stop until the government passes a gun control bill that will suppress the amount of firearms out there. Without a bill New York City and the rest of the United States will see already soaring murder statistics rising sooner than later. New York City is already seeing increasing crime rates as it is and not having a gun control bill is not helping. More and more New Yorkers are dying everyday due to gun violence and the government is doing nothing about this because every person that dies is just another statistic.
Why is the government so resilient from passing a gun control bill? The Second Amendment which protects the rights of the people to keep and bear arms. However the National Rifle Organization sees this as free advertising for their corrupt and openly racist organization. The NRA has an open agenda for corrupting and paying off politicians and congressmen in order for them to vote against the gun control bill. For the past two decades since the Columbine shooting congress has been debating on whether the so called “Gun Control Bill” should be passed across the nation. Some argue that these mass shootings and gun violence could be stopped if stronger gun control laws were passed by congress and others suggest that everyone should own a firearm in order to protect themselves and their families. Both of these views could be conjointly used in order to come up with a gun control bill that would benefit everyone. The NRA however has very traditionalist and conservative views on gun control. Not only are they opposed to gun control they are also opposed to background checks when purchasing a firearm. They argue that if the government obtains a database of all gun owners they could do all sorts of things with that information. Not only that but they take part in lobbying which is the act to influence a government leaders to take a certain side when passing a bill. So in other words the NRA partakes in bribing politicians for their own benefits. The second amendment was created in 1789. At that time the United States has no official police and the country was continuously in war so therefore people bared firearms in order to protect themselves. Two hundred and twenty nine years later the country went through industrialization and rebuilt its government into a modern democracy were formal policemen exist and bare arms in order to protect the citizens. There should be no reason for the Second Amendment to exist today. All that the Second Amendment does is keep backing up corrupt politicians and mentally ill malicious people. If the government does not overcome the Second amendment it will just keep justifying gun violence and crime. A proposed federal law to outlaw all guns would be more effective at disarming
law-abiding citizens than at disarming the criminals who abuse them. If guns were
outlawed, the criminals would not stop carrying guns, but the good, law-abiding citizens
would. It would do nothing about the illegally obtained handguns in the possession of
criminals.