1. Keith Schemel
Professor Blanco
First Year Seminar
12 February 2014
Gun Control Debate
On 14 December 2012, cries rung out from Newtown, Connecticut after a madman
barged into Sandy Hook Elementary School and massacred twenty-seven young children in a ten
minute time period with a M4 Carbine Assault Rifle, a weapon used in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Five months prior to Newtown, James Holmes surged his way into the Aurora, Colorado movie
theatre with an AR-15 assault rifle and opened fire in the crowded movie theatre killing twelve
unsuspecting moviegoers, including a six year old girl, as well as injuring seventy others; the
barrage lasted a mere seven minutes. Between the Newton and Aurora shootings, the massacres
lasted seventeen minutes, and resulted in the death of thirty-nine innocent lives at the hands of
two madmen with assault rifles. These are not the only two incidents of mass shootings in the
United States, just the most recent, as the remnants of Columbine, Virginia Tech, and the
Washington Navy Yard Shooting still remain very powerful in the minds of many. How much
more mass killings do there need to be until legislation is passed restricting, if not completely
banning the selling and manufacturing of certain weapons that only the military and police
should possess?
First of all, the main issue that should be addressed in the gun control debate is the
Second Amendment of the Constitution that was put forth by our founding fathers in 1789. In
plain text, the amendment states, “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a

2. free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Gun advocates
take the second half of the sentence that is interrupted by the comma and use that as their basis of
their argument, stating that the government should not regulate guns, however what becomes
before the coma is highly significant. “A well-regulated militia” should be the only members of
the United States to possess Class A weapons (assault rifles, military grade weapons), not the
common people. As you continue to read the constitution, it refers to a state’s National Guard as
the militia, as in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 of the constitution it states, “Congress may
organize, arm and discipline the militia; the States may establish, appoint the officers of and train
the militia for own protection” (Miller; Guns as Smut: Defending the Home Bound Second
Amendment). The state’s militia, or National Guard, is what the amendment is referring too, not
the common citizen.
The second, and one of the most humane reasons why gun control should be tightened is
the higher and higher rate of suicide every year. Suicide is a major cause of preventable death,
and seems to be steadily increasing every year as a cause of death. In a research conducted by
Dr. Antonio R. Andres, of the University of Aarhus in Denmark, he discovered that “In the
United States, suicide was the 8th leading cause of death for males, and the 19th leading cause of
death for females in 2006” (Andres; Gun Control and Suicide). Further investigation of suicide
in the United States led to a disturbing fact; 50% of successful suicide attempts come from self-
inflicted gunshot wounds, and roughly 46 people in the United States each day killed themselves
via gun. Yes, suicidal beings should seek mental help, however seeking help is confidential and
an unstable person can still buy a gun to kill themselves with no one knowing they are actively
seeking help from depression or another debilitating psychological disorder. By increasing

3. background searches to make medical records available should be a necessity when buying a
gun, and therefore many lives could be saved from suicide.
An outright ban on guns is absolutely impossible to be done, however there are other
ways to combat the increasing violence that guns bring about, and more strictly enforce the laws
that are already acclimated in the American legal system. U.S. News and World Report
journalist, Emma Schwartz, conducted a thorough research project to uncover what Americans
think, and want about gun control. For instance, Schwartz states that, “Four out of every 10
Americans own a gun. And nearly 3 out of 4 believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an
individual the right to have a firearm. Recent Gallup polls show that only 38 percent of
Americans think the most important way to combat gun violence is through stricter gun laws,
and 58 percent believe more should be done to enforce current laws instead” (Schwartz: In
Congress, An Uphill Battle for Gun Control). Let’s do what the majority of the people want, in
this case tighten the gun control laws that are already in place, such as increased background
investigations and an extended waiting process to obtain a gun.
All in all, gun control is needed to save lives, and it’s what the American people want.
Furthermore, the American Constitution states that a regulated militia should maintain the
weapons that are necessary to combat a rebellion, not a common citizen.

4. Works Cited
1. Miller, Darrell A. H. "Guns as Smut: Defending the Home-Bound Second Amendment."
Columbia Law Review 109.6 (2009): 1278-1356. Business Source Elite. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
2. Rodríguez Andrés, Antonio, and Katherine Hempstead. "Gun Control and Suicide: The Impact
of State Firearm Regulations in The United States, 1995–2004." Health Policy 101.1 (2011): 95-
103. Business Source Alumni Edition. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
3. Schwartz, Emma. “In Congress, An Uphill Battle for Gun Control, 2012.” U.S. News and
World Report (2012). Web. 11 Feb. 2014.