I am going to start this off this a pretty obvious statement: Guns are bad. I think that this is something that everyone can agree with. Whether they are being used to attack or defend, (aside from sports) guns are used to either kill or neutralize your target. Now that we have established that guns are bad, we now have to come to the realization that some bad people own guns. This alone should demonstrate why we need guns in the hands of good people. At the end of the day, many people cannot seem to wrap their mind around why anyone should own a gun legally, so I will try to attempt to explain why we need guns.

I think the main reason why we cannot do something dramatic like outlaw guns completely is because even when something is illegal, it is still obtainable. Heroine, marijuana and cocaine are illegal, however there are still drug dealers. Outlawing guns would take guns out of the hands of people who want to protect themselves and put them into the hands of those who want to do harm.

Some people are calling for the outlawing of semi-automatic guns. What these people are ignoring is that fact that hand guns are responsible for the majority of gun violence in the country. Outlawing semi-automatic guns would not do anything but take guns out of the hands of people who own them for protection.

So what should we do about gun violence? There is no way that we are going to be able to get rid of gun violence completely, but there are measures we can take to help educate gun owners and prevent some people from getting guns in the first place. First off, there should be mandatory training when purchasing a firearm. We need to pass a driver’s test in order to get a driver’s license; there is no reason why there shouldn’t be testing to own a gun. Tougher background checks seem to be a no-brainer when selling a gun and is something that everyone should be behind. Gun buy-back programs are also a great way to get guns off of the streets in inner cities, where gun violence is much higher.

I think that we are in too deep with guns in America and there is no way in stopping gun violence completely—even with outlawing guns. However, I think legislators can and should do a better job by passing laws that will help protect citizen’s Second Amendment rights, while simultaneously preventing people who shouldn’t own a gun from buying one in the first place.

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