Guns Usage And Storing Essay Research Paper

Guns Usage And Storing Essay, Research Paper

Guns

A gun gives criminals the power of life and death over ordinary, innocent citizens, and because of that reason there are countless robberies, rapes, and assaults carried out with handguns. There are two hundred thousand robberies and one hundred thousand aggravated assaults are committed with handguns every year. Over two hundred thousand handguns are stolen every year; a sizeable proportion is later used in criminal activity. A firearm in the home carries out associated risks. Guns in the household include risks such as homicide during domestic quarrels, injury or death from unintentional gun shot wounds, and the availability of an immediate, highly lethal means of suicide. In many homes with hand guns, the only real use of the guns may be to make its owner feel safer, but guns in the home are much more likely to kill residents in the home than intruders. Even though the most common reason for owning a handgun is for household self-defense, studies show that loaded household handguns are more likely to kill family members than to save their lives. For every intruder killed by a handgun, six homeowners or their children are killed by accident. About half of all American families own a firearm of some sort, and as many as one in four have a handgun owner among them. There are approximately one hundred twenty million guns in private homes in the United States. One fifth of gun owners identify “Self defense at home” as their most important reason for having a gun. About half of all the homes in America contain one or more firearms. A five-year study of deaths involving firearms kept in the home found that, for every case of self-protection homicides, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and thirty-seven suicides. Guns are used in most youth suicides. Firearms are now used in most suicides on 10-14 and 15-24 year olds. About ten thousand suicides are committed with a handgun annually. (Over four out of five firearm suicides are committed with a handgun.) The increase fueled almost entirely by firearm suicides, which rose from forty eight percent to sixty three percent to total youth suicides. Between 1970 and 1980, the suicide rate among 15-19 year olds increased by forty four percent. Between 1980 and 1986, the number of suicides by 10-14 year olds more than doubled from one hundred thirty nine to two hundred fifty. In 1986, one thousand eight hundred ninety six youths took their lives; one thousand one hundred fifty one with guns, representing a further twenty percent increase in the suicide rate. The suicide rate among teenage boys is more than three times higher that the rate among girls. In part because boys choose more lethal means to attempt suicide. In 1986, more than six times as many boys as girls killed themselves with firearms. The easy availability of firearms to youths has become a serious problem to today’s schools and the communities that we live in. School violence has become a dismal fact of life, but many educators continue to respond with not in my, school denial. According to the National crime survey, almost three million crimes occur on or near schoolyard campuses every year sixteen thousand per school day, or one every six seconds. A federally founded twenty-state survey of eleven thousand adolescents found that forty one percent of boys and twenty one percent of girls said they could obtain a handgun if they wanted to. Florida reported a forty two percent increase in gun incidents in schools between the 1986-1987 and 1987-1988 schools years (eighty six percent of the guns were traced came from student’s homes.) California Schools reported a forty three percent increase in student gun confiscations in middle schools and fifty percent increase in high schools over three years. In California in the 1988-1989 School year sessions, assaults were up sixteen percent to sixty nine percent. Almost one-third of the students in thirty-one high schools in Illinois said they had brought a weapon to school for self-protection at some time during their high school career. Three percent of boys said they had carried a handgun to school once in 1987, and one percent – potentially one hundred thirty five thousand nationwide, said they carried one to school daily. The 1991-1992 School year session in New York had fifty-six shootings and was the bloodiest ever: November 18, 1991, Brooklyn Alternative High School: Teacher Shot in the left arm on street. On November 21,1991, McKee High School, Curtis High School, and Staten Island: A student shot three students, killing one 18-year-old. November 1,1991, Westinghouse High School, Brooklyn: 19 students shot in back by gang of armed intruders in school highway. November 21, 1992 Brooklyn, Police officer shot in street by student. October 8, 1991, James Monroe High School, the Bronx: 17 students shot and killed. October 7,1991, Brooklyn: Parent shot in back by pellet of BB gun November 25, 1991, Thomas Jefferson High School, Brooklyn: 16 students and teachers killed and wounded in hall. January 30, 1992, Brooklyn, Two Students (Band II) wounded when another student fired into playground. Although Some Legislation has been put forward to eliminate even these federal four regulations, other proposals have been difficult for minors, criminals and others to obtain handguns. There have been several types of proposed legislation relating to handguns. One type of pro