Throughout 2013, President Barack Obama and the Congress failed repeatedly to reach a compromise on gun control laws. Even after the Washington Navy Yard massacre in September 16, with Obama’s revised call for congressional action to address federal gun laws, the Republicans in Congress still refused to comply. If we examine the list of twenty-five deadliest mass shootings in U.S. from 1965, the top two happened within six years – Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, both in schools, with 32 deaths and 27 deaths. Every tragedy raised nationwide debates about gun laws, but no response in form of new gun legislation from Congress has been received. The last significant gun law was 1994’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired on 2004. After that, the only federal laws about guns was Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005, which clearly had nothing to do with gun control. Aside from political reasons the Congress may have for blocking gun laws, the Americans themselves remain wavering. Almost half of Americans believe the government should strengthen laws on firearm sale and the other half believe the laws should stay the same or less strict. Such division makes Congress more difficult to make a move.
The gun control debate is an important issue all over the world, but rarely as contentious as it is in the United States. The major reason is that any law with the intention to place restriction to gun procession can be easily defined as unconstitutional in U.S. Under the Second Amendment, an individual has the right to own and carry a firearm even when under a restraining order. This amendment about Constitution attempted to protect U.S. citizens from tyranny and other people’s violence. It’s justifiable that Congress takes a cautious attitude toward bills which seem to oppose what our Founding Fathers have said. However, although we should still undoubtedly hold Constitution as our supreme and unshakable law, it’s time for the Congress to keep up with changes in our society and make some adjunction to the Second Amendment.
According to John Marshall Gest, “the law, like everything we do and like everything we say, is a heritage from the past.” Indeed, the Founding Fathers build our laws based on experiences and proverbs the earlier philosophers and politicians have left us, but laws are made to rule future circumstances. No man, even as wise as Founding Fathers, can foresee what our future is like. Therefore, the government keeps adding, canceling, and changing some of the federal laws to keep laws effective throughout the time, just like what they did on alcohols laws. Since national prohibition of alcohol was ended by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, the Congress took numerous steps to prevent criminal problems brought by alcohol, especially driving under influence. As of 1988, all fifty states and the District of Columbia had a minimum alcohol purchase age of 21 under the order of federal law. The government has passed bills with strict blood alcohol limit, set severe penalty for drunk driving, launched nationwide public campaign about alcohol, and finally brought the drinking driving rate down by two third. It’s time for the government to apply the same actions to gun control. At the time the Second Amendment was mandated, there were no gun sale stores all across the country; not many people could afford to purchase a gun; automatic assault weapons which can fire hundreds of bullets per second were not invented. As the technology has developed so rapidly nowadays, the Congress should progress to supplement our gun laws.
In the case of Sandy Hook Elementary School mass murder we mentioned before, the shooter used Bushmaster M4 Type Carbine, a semi-automatic machine gun which should absolutely not be accessed to by a twenty-year-old. The government must respect Americans’ right to bear firearms given by the Constitution, but also put more restrain to it, such as strengthening banning of automatic assault weapons and suppressed machine guns, limiting magazines to smaller round capacity, or applying strict background check on gun registration and sale. At state level, the government has achieve revolutionary success in Connecticut. After the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut passed laws to ban the sale of more than 100 types of military-style rifles, penalize gun owners who do not register with state police and limit large-capacity magazines to 10 bullets. These laws were ruled as constitutional by Supreme Court. It’s now federal government’s responsibility to spread such efforts over the country. Making supplement to the Second Amendment is not against Constitution, it’s a compromise we have to make under contemporary situation.
I like how you pointed out one of the many inconsistencies in our government’s approach to creating and altering policy: their willingness to interpret old laws through a modern lens on some fronts, but never in the case of the second amendment. You also really managed to strengthen your pathos with the Sandy Hook/Virginia Tech motif, which made your essay all the more effective. Why not conjure up the most devastating images of an age when you are trying to rectify the very flaws in our system that allowed the evil that caused that devastation to act?
I love the way you provide such relevant and in depth background information in the first paragraph as it also establishes your legitimacy and authority to write about the subject. Your formal tone and use of good references makes your argument very persuasive. I also like the way you have a specific response and call to action at the conclusion of your essay which really leaves the reader with a strong and specific idea in mind.
The factual evidence you have and the background information you have really strengthen your essay. It provides a lot of support for your argument. I think if you lengthen your thesis instead of just saying “Such division makes Congress more difficult to make a move” to something like “the bipartisanship in congress makes progress difficult, especially regarding gun control laws.” I also think if you read over it and clean up some of the mistakes it would be stronger. Other than that good job!
-background info, nice touch
-shaky sentence structure
-idea about outdated laws
-research: dangers of regulatory measures
Ying, this essay was cohesive and fluid. I like that you include background info about the current laws in effect and the idea about many of those statutes being outdated. However, your sentence structure and grammar is shaky and slightly confusing in some parts. I think this minor issue could easily be resolved with another read through of your draft. I also think it could be beneficial to include some counterpoints to the argument other than the necessity to preserve the people’s constitutional rights. Perhaps do some research and comment on the potential dangers of over-regulation in the gun market? I enjoyed reading your essay, great topic choice.
Ying, I really liked your essay! I thought your topic was interesting and you provided strong evidence to support your stance. There were some sentences which I found great and really backed your statements. I really liked the last paragraph. Your description of the gun and how a 20-year-old should not have that weapon was great. I also liked how you turned the attention to the federal government to come to action. I would improve on some of the wording but overall it was great!
I liked that you picked the gun control topic because it is a very controversial issue with many sides to it. You gave a lot of information (legislation, notable shootings, weaponry, etc.), which really does give the reader a holistic review of the topic. However, I think if you provided a little more transition between your paragraphs/ideas, it could help the reader better understand the overall message of your essay. Furthermore, I think additional details would help the reader understand all the evidence you are presenting. When you talk about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and say it “clearly ha[s] nothing to do with gun control” it could be helpful to give a brief description of what it did say. Overall, I think you have a lot of good examples and evidence and strengthening your transitions will help tie the entire piece together.
Ying, I really like the ideas you presented in this essay. I think the concept that our changing times permit new, updated laws is very original and true. I also thought that you did an excellent job of backing your statements up with evidence, which made the paper all the more believable. At the very end, you added a paragraph that was more optimistic and that gave the reader something to aspire to in the future – another smart touch. What I would work on in this essay is wording and organization in the beginning. I though that the first paragraph could have more clearly stated or hinted at your thesis. I felt that the main point of confusion was whether you were criticizing Congress for not taking action, or criticizing the American public in general for making it difficult for Congress. Otherwise, I really enjoyed it!