hook for gun violence essay

Gun Control Argumentative Essay: 160 Topics + How-to Guide [2024]

After the recent heartbreaking mass shootings, the gun control debate has reached its boiling point.

Do we need stricter gun control laws ? Should everyone get a weapon to oppose crime? Or should guns be banned overall? You have the opportunity to air your opinion in a gun control argumentative essay.

Below, you’ll find everything you need to write a great paper in no time. Check weighty arguments, catchy gun control essay titles, and the latest sources on the subject.

Don’t forget to check our writing service . With it, you can get your gun control essay done just in a few hours.

🔝 Top 10 Gun Control Essay Titles

💥 take a stand in the gun control debate.

• 👍 Pro Gun Control Essay Topics

👎 Against Gun Control Essay Topics

⚡ gun violence essay titles, ⚖️ gun laws essay topics to explore, 🔫 gun control controversial topics for a research paper, 🔰 pros and cons of gun control, ✍️ 5 steps in writing a gun control essay.

• 🤔 Frequent Questions
• Does gun ownership deter crime?
• Ethics of owning guns for sport.
• Gun control laws and suicide rate.
• Do weapons bring a sense of safety?
• Guns and domestic abuse protection.
• Do gun control laws reduce gun deaths?
• Gun control laws and government tyranny.
• Are gun control laws invasion of privacy?
• Should high-capacity magazines be banned?
• Gun control as a way to reduce the crime rate.

Did you know that 33 people are killed with guns every day in America? This is one of the numbers you can use in your essay on gun control. Are you ready to learn more reasons both for and against gun control? Here they are, in a nutshell:

Have you chosen which side you’re on? Great! Now you already have solid background knowledge on the issue.

The information above will help you write an outstanding essay on gun control. Moreover, you can easily proofread it using Grammarly and avoid common grammar mistakes.

👀 150 Catchy Gun Control Topics

Do you want to know the next step toward your A+ gun control essay? It’s a catchy title that expresses your standpoint and grabs your readers’ interest.

Here are some examples.

👍 Pro-Gun Control Essay Topics

Arms possession is a right enshrined in the US constitution. Yet, more and more people voice their concerns about owning firearms. Mass shootings, suicides, and abuse are among the top arguments for stricter laws. Here, we’ve collected plenty of insightful pro-gun control topics for you to explore.

• Pro-gun radicalism and American fears. Guns and fear often go hand in hand. Studies suggest that gun owners are more prone to phobias and distrust. The topic requires showing the irrational essence of gun ownership.
• Being pro-gun equals being anti-women. Firearms make domestic violence a lot more likely to end in death. Prohibiting gun access for abusers could save women’s lives.
• Why background checks don’t always work. Background checks are essential. Yet, they don’t always prevent ineligible individuals from acquiring a firearm . This “why we need gun control” essay shines a light on the procedure’s flaws.
• The economic burden of firearms. This topic concerns the costs linked to gun-related injuries and deaths. These preventable expenditures strain the US economy. You can underline the necessity of gun control to alleviate the problem.
• Gun control to protect schools from firearms. Schools are at the heart of the anti-gun movement. Meanwhile, gun control plays a vital role in preserving safety in educational facilities. An essay could communicate the intricate connection between the two.
• Kids are not ok: pediatric gun-related injuries and deaths. Children often become victims of gun violence. The number of pediatric firearm-related injuries and deaths is disproportionate. Should parents remove all guns from their households to protect their kids?
• Rising gun deaths: a call for action. The high firearm-related death rate is a notorious problem. In the United States, the number is consistently above average. In this gun control argumentative essay, it becomes a reason for stricter gun policies.
• Reducing firearm ownership is not decreasing civil liberties. The topic handles primary gun control opponents’ counterarguments. The key reasoning is that gun ownership is not a universal human right. In this essay, you can explore the notion of civil liberties.
• Suicide and the availability of guns. Gun control topics are rarely concerned with suicide. It’s an essential yet underexplored and part of it. You can show how stricter gun control would help reduce suicide rates.
• More guns, more shootings: understanding gun control. This topic requires exploring the link between firearms and shootings. You can use gun ownership and mass shooting rates to prove your point. In this pro-gun control essay, statistical information is instrumental.
• Gun control as an answer to violent murders.
• Do firearm restrictions harm democracy?
• The perverseness of being pro-life and pro-gun.
• Do guns in households cause more accidental deaths?
• Why are some people scared of stricter gun control?
• Debunking “guns for self-defense” myths.
• Gun control’s positive impact on hospitalization rates.
• Does better gun control improve life quality?
• Firearms and suicidal behavior: another case for restrictions.
• What fears drive opponents of gun laws?
• Do firearms restrictions increase the value of life?
• Do gun laws reduce societal costs?
• Restricting the carry of firearms for societal benefit.
• Does pro-gun activism favor domestic abusers?
• Firearms: used far less for defense than for attacks.
• More guns – more violence
• Stop the wrong people from getting guns
• Revision of the Second Amendment to prevent human tragedies
• The Second Amendment and gun control can co-exist
• The thin line between self-defense and deadly force

Stricter laws can’t solve every problem. In cases such as prostitution and drug use, they are even detrimental. But does this reasoning also apply to gun control? Find it out by discussing its disadvantages with one of the following engaging prompts:

• Gun control laws: a waste of taxpayers’ money. Firearm restrictions have economic consequences. Additional gun control measures are not free— they require more monetary resources. Besides, stricter gun control deprives many citizens of firearm-related jobs.
• Firearm regulations deny the right to self-defense . Self-defense is a constitutional right granted by the Founding Fathers. When an attacker is armed, defensive gun use remains the only option. Gun control diminishes the capacity of citizens to protect themselves.
• Guns don’t breed crime—society does. Crime is a colossal social challenge. It is vital to direct resources for crime prevention and management. Yet, gun control is not the ultimate solution to this problem.
• Gun control laws are not fruitful. One of the purposes of gun control is to curb the gun violence epidemic. Yet, whether it works or not is debatable. This “is greater gun control a great idea” essay demonstrates gun control’s ineffectiveness.
• Gun control: limiting citizens’ freedoms. Gun control is not only fruitless, but it’s also unconstitutional. The right to possess and carry guns is civil liberty. Firearm restrictions violate the essence of the country’s constitution.
• Gun ownership increases the sense of security. Besides, firearms perform an important psychological function. They give their owners a sense of safety, bringing emotional comfort. Gun control takes away the knowledge that one can protect oneself.
• Firearms black market: a bigger problem. Gun control will not prevent determined individuals from obtaining firearms. Restricting access to legal guns could prompt people to buy weapons from black markets.
• Knives, hardware, and vehicles are lethal weapons , too. Firearms are only a small part of a criminal’s arsenal. For instance, they frequently use cars as deadly weapons. Firearm control can’t always prevent those determined to harm someone from doing it.
• Eliminating guns: an oversimplified approach. Gun control proponents often oversimplify the problem. Access to firearms is not the root cause of gun-related deaths and violence. The phenomenon has multiple origins that you could examine.
• Disarming Americans kills their national identity. Guns are deeply ingrained in American culture and national identity. The right to bear them has a profound symbolic notion. This “against gun control” essay covers the meaning of firearms in American nationhood.
• Gun control hinders African American emancipation.
• How does gun control incite government tyranny?
• Gun control doesn’t prevent violent behavior.
• The racist history behind firearm restrictions.
• The Second Amendment: the cornerstone of gun rights.
• Firearms as an answer to domestic violence.
• Would gun control make the country safer?
• Firearm ownership: gaining control over life.
• Gun control and the demise of democracy.
• The empowering role of firearms .
• Gun control as a method of disabling citizens.
• What’s your position on the statement: “Assault is not a weapon but a behavior”?
• Why gun control laws should be scrapped.
• Is there a link between firearm ownership and crime?
• Banning guns means more black markets.
• Gun control is not the answer – education is
• Gun culture propaganda starts with cartoons
• Mass media is to blame: murder is an easy route to fame
• Gun control : why not ban everything that poses a potential threat?
• Criminals don’t obey gun control laws

Firearm violence has developed into a significant human rights issue. It affects our right to life and health. Not only that, but it can also limit our access to education. Gun violence disrupts school processes and endangers student safety. An essay on this issue gives you many different directions to explore.

• Firearm violence as a racial equity challenge. Studies have shown that some ethnicities are more likely to experience gun violence than others. African Americans, in particular, are affected by the issue. Your essay can investigate how firearm violence reflects and aggravates discrimination.
• The relationship between mental health and mass shootings. Mental illness is the prime suspect as the root of gun violence. Researchers often consider it a determiner for mass shootings. For this topic, it’s vital to analyze literature regarding the correlation.
• Preventing and responding to firearm-related deaths. Each year, thousands of US citizens die due to gun violence . As the rate of firearm death rises, the issue becomes exponentially troubling. Decreasing the gun-related mortality rate is a topic of high priority.
• The socio-economic roots of firearm violence . Gun violence has pronounced socio-economic causes. Low income and life in a deprived neighborhood are among the most significant risk factors. Examining how certain circumstances prompt gun violence is instrumental in alleviating the issue.
• Long-term psychological effects of gun violence . Survivors and witnesses of gun violence experience grave psychological consequences, including PTSD and depression. Your essay can present gun violence as an extremely traumatic event.
• The contagion effect in mass shootings . The contagion effect describes the spread of behavior. You can use it to explain the epidemic of gun violence. The topic requires you to look into the phenomenon.
• Intimate partner violence : the role of firearms. The severity of intimate partner violence is related to how accessible guns are to abusers. Many domestic homicides involve the use of weapons. This gun ownership essay prompts to explain how firearms contribute to the phenomenon.
• Mass shootings and weapon availability. This topic prompts you to investigate the mass shootings aspect of gun violence. In particular, it’s concerned with the link between gun accessibility and mass murder. You could use quotes and statistics regarding gun laws to establish the connection.
• Gun violence: A poignant human rights issue. Firearm violence causes psychological, social, and financial harm. Its victims suffer from long-term consequences in the form of mental disorders. It’s unwise to overestimate the issue’s global burden.
• Gun violence against women and girls. Firearms violence negatively impacts the life quality of women. Women and girls frequently become victims of gun attacks. Here, you could discuss how deep-seated misogyny contributes to the problem.

• The global burden of guns.
• Firearms violence: A community health problem.
• The reasons behind gun violence in the United States .
• A gender profile of firearm violence .
• School shootings: portrayal in media.
• What are the economic consequences of firearm violence?
• Preventing gun violence in vulnerable neighborhoods.
• The role of toxic masculinity in gun violence.
• Discuss the effect of firearm ownership regulations .
• How can the government reduce firearm violence in low-income neighborhoods?
• Psychological consequences of school shootings.
• Supporting school shooting survivors.
• What are the effects of gun ownership on violence?
• The epidemiology of mass shootings.
• Mass shootings from a sociological perspective.
• Fighting against gun violence: social activism .
• Gun violence: the primary cause of premature death.
• What ethical problems occur regarding mass shootings?
• How does the media promote gun violence?
• The health implications of gun violence.

Gun laws are vital to ensure the safe handling and purchase of firearms. Regulations come from the federal as well the state level. It makes gun laws confusing for many. If you’d like to entangle the issue, this section is for you.

• Major loopholes in gun laws. Federal and state laws are vulnerable to exploitation. It means they contain gaps endangering public safety. The “Charleston loophole” is the most notorious example. You can inspect it along with other deficiencies.
• Gun laws: too strict or too weak? The harshness of gun laws is a debatable issue. Given the present gun violence epidemic, the answer might appear evident. Still, this topic encourages viewing the problem from multiple perspectives.
• Prohibiting the possession of assault weapons. Assault weapons are another intriguing facet of America’s gun problem. Currently, there is no federal law prohibiting their ownership. Using such a weapon in a shooting increases mortality and traumatism.
• The problem with private gun sales. Private firearms trade results in excessive gun accessibility. Private sellers are allowed to bypass crucial standards such as sales recordkeeping. The situation poses a threat to communal well-being.
• Mental illness in the context of firearms control legislation. In the context of gun laws, mental illness is a prominent notion. The term and its usage in state and federal laws have nuances. You can interpret them in your essay.
• Using deadly force to defend property. Firearms constitute a part of the “deadly force” notion. Regarding the defense of private property, its use is not always justifiable. This gun law essay proposes to reflect on the norms of firearm use.
• Nuances and limitations of the stand-your-ground law. The stand-your-ground law is the subject of heated debate. It’s easy to misinterpret it. It most notably concerns the boundaries of gun use. Yet, knowing what is allowed is essential in self-defense.
• The need for federal registration laws. Although there is no national gun registry, its introduction could be beneficial. It would allow law enforcement agencies to track firearms more efficiently. In your essay, you could research other advantages of federal registration as well.
• Differences in gun laws at the state level. Besides federal laws, each state has its own firearms policies. Federal and state regulations tend to vary considerably. It could be interesting to analyze how gun use and possession regulations differ from state to state.
• Buying guns without a background check: a dangerous loophole. Background checks are indispensable under federal law. Still, a loophole makes it possible to sell firearms to incompetent and dangerous individuals. Say what could be done to make background checks more efficient.
• Are tougher gun laws a solution?
• Politically polarizing firearm policies .
• What are the public’s views of federal firearms laws?
• Gun licenses and political affiliation.
• Firearm registration and accessibility of guns to criminals .
• Gun laws: State vs. Federal.
• How are state gun laws and firearm mortality connected?
• Gun laws from the constitutional point of view .
• Understanding the duty to retreat in US legislation.
• Gun-friendly state laws and criminality.

• Open carry and concealed carry laws.
• The extent of federal gun laws .
• Concealed carry: not covered by the Second Amendment.
• Should the US government enforce firearm registration?
• Limiting concealed carry under the influence.
• Weaker gun laws equal less public safety.
• Gun control policies: Democrats vs. Republicans.
• The benefits of a universal background check.
• Analyze gun laws in the state of Missouri.
• Restoring the federal assault weapons ban.

There are few topics more controversial than gun control. That’s why it’s the perfect base for a good debate. Controversies surrounding gun control include questions of race, gender, and ethics.

• Gun ownership: gender, ethnicity, and class . The demographic portrait of a gun owner is a politically loaded subject. Despite the possible implications, it necessitates in-depth research. This topic suggests considering gun owners’ social class, gender, and ethnicity.
• The racial element in American gun culture . Racism and gun control are more connected than might appear. A range of opinions exists. Evaluating their interconnection might yield compelling results. In your essay, investigate American gun culture through the prism of racial inequality.
• Firearms ownership: do we need incentives or fees? Gun ownership has several advantages, such as a sense of security. Nevertheless, its less positive effects could eclipse them. Discussing whether gun ownership should be discouraged or encouraged could help you write an engaging paper.
• The usage of firearms in self-defense. The efficacy and frequency of self-defense weapon use are essential for the gun control debate. Analyzing these factors could help establish the validity of the argument.
• Gun ownership regulation: the Swiss example. In terms of firearm possession, Switzerland is a liberal country. It has lax laws regarding the acquisition and usage of guns. What can Switzerland teach the US about gun control ?
• The ethicality of firearm ownership. It is common to examine whether gun ownership is constitutional. Looking at its ethicality is a rarer approach. This controversial gun control essay topic helps to bridge the knowledge gap.
• Constitutional contradictions regarding gun rights. The Constitution’s meaning is not as self-evident as it may appear. Whether gun rights are constitutional or unconstitutional is at the core of the debate.
• Do gun rights promote vigilantism? Vigilante violence is a severe community challenge. A vengeful armed vigilante is a threat to their society. In your paper, investigate the role of gun rights in contributing to the problem.
• Preventing criminals from accessing guns. How effective is gun control in stopping gun violence? Contradictory opinions denying or supporting its productiveness need scrutiny. For this paper, you can use statistics and facts to clarify the situation.
• The ideology behind gun control and rights. The gun control debate has long gone beyond objective arguments. By now, the problem entails larger political implications. Gun ownership or its absence strongly correlates with political behavior.
• Interpretations of the Second Amendment regarding gun control .
• Does unrestricted gun ownership lead to more shootings?
• The effectiveness of firearm restrictions.
• Multiple origins of gun-related crime.
• Are gun restrictions instrumental for public safety?
• Gun control as a measure against crime and gun violence.
• Firearm control rhetoric: an analysis.
• Should the public use of guns remain legal?
• Gun control : creating optimal policies.
• Presidential elections and gun control rhetoric.
• Limiting access to guns: is it useful or debilitating?
• Evaluating gun control and its impact on crime.
• The future of gun laws.
• The political battle over gun control.
• Gun policies and common sense.
• How relevant is firearms control?
• What effect does gun ownership have on domestic abuse ?
• The economics of gun control.
• Gun control: Is it saving lives or narrowing freedoms?
• Should you ever be able to buy a gun without a license or permit?

Gun control pros and cons have been discussed and thoroughly analyzed countless times. Both advocates and opponents have stuck to their positions, leaving the issue unresolved. Here are a few important pros and cons:

Points made in support of gun control (pros)

• Gun control statistics reveal that although the United States accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, U.S. residents own 50% of guns in the world.
• When gun deaths statistics for different countries were expressed as the number of gun deaths in a population of a million people, the United States was ranked below South Africa.

Points against gun control (cons)

• The very idea of gun control goes against the US constitution that allows people the right to safeguard their lives. People need guns to defend themselves when being attacked by others. Additionally, firearms can provide a sense of comfort and security. It would be undemocratic to take away a person’s right to feel safe.
• Since the Second Amendment upholds the right to gun ownership, it should not be restricted. It seems dangerous to start altering the constitution whenever we see fit. In doing so, we might create a precedent that others can use to promote more harmful agendas.

Whichever side you chose, now you already have a few persuasive arguments. Let’s move on to the actual writing part.

Writing an impressive essay on gun control can be a bit difficult without proper organization. No matter what type of paper you are going to work on, you’ll need some detailed planning and thorough research.

Follow these five steps to write a perfect gun control essay:

• Define what gun control is. Whether you are writing an argumentative, persuasive, or any other type of paper, the first thing you need is context. Use the definitions that are most appropriate for your essay. For example, you might start with a dictionary definition. Then, add some general facts about types of firearms. Next, you might give statistics on gun control , such as ownership and reasons for it.
• Write a gun control thesis statement. Besides context and definitions, any essay introduction requires a thesis. It’s the message you’re going to argue in the following paragraphs. So, work on it before writing the rest of the paper. Make sure your gun control thesis statement is concise and easy to understand. You can use an online thesis generator if that requirement is hard for you to achieve.
• One option is to use studies that have collected plentiful information over the years.
• If you are writing a pro-gun control essay, you can use studies or statistics on how guns owned by private citizens have killed innocent people. You can also cite cases where students used their parents’ guns to commit violent crimes in school.
• If you are arguing against gun control, cite studies proving that private gun ownership saves lives. You could also add research revealing the positive effects of gun ownership.
• Organize your paper. Of course, the content and organization vary for each particular essay. The facts remain the same. It is the way that you arrange and present them that will create a concrete argument. That’s why you should make sure to draft an outline before you get started.
• End with a strong conclusion. In there, you should summarize your essay and reiterate the most important points. Don’t forget to restate and develop your statement based on the facts you mentioned. If it’s not an argumentative essay, present your findings and suggestions about the issue.

As you can see, writing an impressive gun control essay takes time and effort. It also requires deep research. If you’re finding this task too challenging, you can order an essay from our custom writing service. We provide 100% original papers at reasonable prices.

You might also be interested in:

• Top Ideas for Argumentative or Persuasive Essay Topics
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🤔 Gun Control FAQ

To create a great title, you should express your point of view in a concise and eye-catching manner. A creative title grabs your readers’ interest. Try to make up an unusual keyword combination, or paraphrase a metaphor or a set expression. Using two opposite ideas works well, too.

If you want to spark a discussion, you need to make an educated standpoint choice. For a good debate essay, make sure to thoroughly study the topic. A list of pros and cons will help you gain a deeper insight. Then decide where you stand before you start writing.

Good persuasive topics provoke emotions. A great topic for an essay is an issue that concerns nearly everyone in society. For example, gun control or animal testing may be good topics for college essays.

Good thesis statements give a clearly formulated opinion. You need to state whether you are for or against gun control. Either way, the author’s position must be based on convincing arguments and facts.

🔗 References

• Gun Control Latest Events
• The Link Between Firearms, Crime and Gun Control
• Gun Control Pros and Cons
• Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
• A Brief History of the National Rifle Association
• Gun Control Essays at Bartleby
• Argumentative Essays on Gun Control
• Gun Control Issues, Public Health, and Safety
• Universal Background Checks: Giffords
• Gun Violence: Amnesty International
• Facts on US Gun Ownership: Pew Research Center
• Gun Control in the US: Encyclopedia Britannica
• Gun Control: The Debate and Public Policy: Social Studies
• Guns and Gun Control: The New York Times
• Gun Control Topic Overview: Gale
• US Gun Policy: Global Comparisons: Council of Foreign Relations
• US Gun Debate: Four Dates that Explain How We Got Here: BBC News
• Gun Control and Gun Rights: US News
• Why Gun Control Is So Contentious in the US: Live Science
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my thing is this it’s not the guns it’s people now if we could make it to where you’ll have to possess a gun ownership license kinda like a drivers license that would solve most problems don’t you think

I agree with you, Richard.

I am trying to cite this website for my English paper on “NoodleTools” and there are multiple things I can’t find. Like the publisher, publication date, “permalink,” and more. I really like this article though!

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My opinion if I may is that guns should be in the hands of law enforcement and military. If a person wants a gun for protection they only need to call 911 on their cell or landline if a person is frightened to take steps which are many, to ensure your safety guns do kill people and there have been far too many innocent people dying! Football games schools churches concerts outdoor activities and or indoor activities places just about anywhere and people in danger it is terrible. What has become to civilization where people are going about their innocent daily lives and get killed!!!!! What is wrong with this picture? Many years ago American citizens did not have to live in such danger as it is today, the government does nothing including NRA. Congress does nothing, sadly we live in a dangerous and volatile world and something needs to be done about this to prevent innocent children and adults from dangerous people who have guns in their hands the government should protect America from harm and danger!!!!

This helped me with my essay due. I wanted to do it on gun control, but I had no idea where to start. This really helped to develop my thesis statement and claim to turn in. Now I just have to write 8 pages on it. 🙂 Wish me luck, lol.

Do you still have a copy of this essay ?

Good luck, Danielle! 🙂 Glad the article was useful for you.

I think you should add how guns can be a big cause in the world because guns are a bad thing.

This helped me with a 5-paragraph essay I need due.

This article saved me so much time, thank you!!!

Thank you! This post helped me a lot with my essay.

5 Essays about Gun Violence

Gun violence impacts every part of society. There are certain places in the world where it’s more prevalent. According to a 2018 report, the United States had the 28th highest rate of gun violence deaths in the world. That puts the US above other wealthy countries. Gun violence is also a major issue in places like the Caribbean, Central America, and Venezuela. Here are five essays that address the financial and emotional impact of gun violence, how people use art to cope, and how the problem can be addressed.

“What Does Gun Violence Really Cost?”

Mark Follman, Julia Lurie, Jaeah Lee, and James West

This article opens with the story of a woman and her fiance shot on their way to dinner. After being close to death and staying in a hospital for five months, Jennifer Longdon couldn’t move her body from the chest down. After more hospitalizations, the bills got close to $1 million in just the first year, forcing her to file for personal bankruptcy. More expensive hospital stays followed for problems like sepsis, while wheelchair modifications for her house added up, as well.

For many people, their knowledge of gun violence comes from the news or movies. These venues tend to focus on the moment the violence occurs or the emotional impact. The long-term financial consequences as a result of health issues are less known. This article examines the existing data while telling a personal story.

“I Think of People Who Died At Sandy Hook Every Day”

Mary Ann Jacob

In this essay from 2016, Mary Ann Jacob remembers the horrific elementary school shooting from 2012. She worked at the library at the time and recalls hearing shouting from the intercom on the morning of December 14. Believing someone had pushed it by mistake, she called in, only to have the secretary answer the phone and shout, “There’s a shooter!” Mary Ann Jacob lived through one of the deadliest school shootings in US history. The essay goes on to describe what happened after and the steps survivors took to advocate for better gun control.

“You May Not See Me On TV, But Parkland Is My Story, Too”

Kyrah Simon

In 2018, a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and wounded 17 others. Several students became vocal afterwards, challenging the lack of gun control in the face of such violence. They founded an advocacy group and many of the young people became household names. Kyrah Simon, a senior at the school, lost one of her best friends. She also wanted to speak up and share her story but realized that the media wanted certain speeches, certain faces. She writes, “I was just a girl that lost her friend. And it wasn’t enough.” Raw, honest, and enlightening, this personal essay is a must-read.

“Mexican Artist Transforms 1,527 Deadly Guns Into Life-Giving Shovels To Plant Trees”

In Culiacan, Mexico, the city with the highest rate of deaths by gun violence in the country, an artist and activist began a special project. Pedro Reyes used local media and TV ads paid for by the city’s botanical garden to advertise his gun-trading project. In exchange for bringing their weapons, people received electronics and appliances coupons. Reyes made over 1,500 trades. What came next? The guns were crushed by a steamroller and melted down. Reyes used the material to create shovels. He made the same number of shovels as guns, so each gun was represented as something new.

Turning guns into art is not an uncommon action. Reyes has also made instruments while other artists make sculptures. The transformation of an object of death into something that plays a part in fostering life – like planting trees – sends a powerful message.

“Forum: Doing Less Harm”

David Hemenway

What is the best approach to gun violence? David Hemenway, a professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center, advocates for a public-health approach. He believes gun violence is a public-safety problem and a problem-health problem, but gun lobbyists dismiss both claims. The gun lobby focuses on the shooter – the individual – so attention is diverted from the firearms industry. In focusing so much on who to blame, prevention is left out of the equation.

A public-health approach returns the attention to prevention and asks everyone to work together on the issue. Hemenway uses motor-vehicle injury prevention as a blueprint for why gun violence prevention can work. Not sure what prevention could look like? Hemenway provides examples of how actors like healthcare workers, consumers, and the federal government can work together.

Learn about the consequences of gun violence in America and which interventions are most effective to reduce gun violence in homes, schools and communities!

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

84 Gun Control Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🔫 how to write a gun control essay: do’s and don’ts, 🏆 best gun control topic ideas & essay examples.

• 💡 Most Interesting Gun Control Topics to Write about

❓ Gun Control Essay Questions

Writing a gun control essay can be tricky if you’ve never done it before.

However, there are some things that will make the process much easier and help you get a good grade. Here is a list of what to do and what not to do while writing an essay on gun control:

• Don’t rely on news articles to provide you with reliable information. Some news sources may twist data in order to convey certain ideas that may not be entirely true. Similarly, you should avoid relying on politicians’ statements because they may be biased.
• Do search scholarly articles and official reports on the topic. These types of resources often contain raw data that is more reliable than other people’s interpretations.
• Don’t assume a position before you’ve done enough research. Although you may have a certain opinion based on your political beliefs or other people’s influences, it may prevent you from offering an unbiased view in your essay. Hence, make sure that you’ve read as much as possible on the subject before writing your gun control essay thesis.
• Do consider gun control in a global context. Different countries and states have various laws in place to promote gun safety. Comparing various outcomes between two or more areas with different gun control laws will give you more things to write about in the paper.
• Don’t ignore the issues related to gun control. Gun violence is among the most obvious topics that you can include in the paper. However, try to think about other issues, such as terrorism, police brutality, illegal gun dealing, and more. Reviewing the influence of gun control on other problems will give your essay more depth and might offer a new perspective on the issue.
• Do research gun sample essays on gun control before you begin writing. These can help you to understand the full scope of the issue and the various opinions on it. A good gun control essay example may give you new thoughts on the content, structure, titles, and arguments.
• Don’t forget about the structure. Organization and logical flow of the paper are just as important as the content. To help with this part, create a gun control essay outline containing your key points. These points should be the topic sentences, followed by related explanations or examples.
• Do capture the reader’s attention from the beginning. Essays on controversial subjects, such as gun law problems, tend to be similar to one another. How do you think your tutor would feel if they had to go through ten or more papers with the same thoughts and arguments? To draw attention and make the reader interested in reading further, you need to ensure that your first sentence contains a hook. A good gun control essay hook may be a rhetorical question or a contented statement made by a politician.
• Don’t forget to give your reader a proper closure. The final paragraph of the paper should offer a summary of all the themes covered, as well as your conclusions based on research. Remember that this part of the essay should not contain any new information. Instead, restate your thesis and main points and show how your interpretation of the gun control problem was influenced by this information.

Lastly, do check our site for more information on how to write an argumentative or persuasive paper!

• An Argument against Gun Control This paper will argue that the US government does not have any right to control guns and as such, it should respect the second amendment and stop taking up measures to impose gun control on […]
• Greater Gun Control Is a Good Idea A stricter legislature on guns in society means that people with and without firearms can live with the guarantee of a safer community that reduces gun access to unwarranted personnel. Gun control is a good […]
• Gun Control in the United States of America Moreover, when the public is in possession of guns, it makes it hard for the police to maintain law and order since they can be entangled in a scandal.
• Gun Control: Gun Reforms Could Save Lives Gun violence has been a challenge that needs to be addressed and has resulted in the deaths of people through murder, suicide, and accidents. Both of them agree that gun policies and restrictions can be […]
• Think Tank Positions on Gun Control It is known that the arbitrary usage of the weapon brings irrecoverable losses and undermines the confidence in safe living. It is doubtful whether the professionals will come to the house of the potential offender […]
• U.S. Gun Control and Violence The culture of conflict resolution by violence is a common theme in the history of the U.S. This culture could be one of the reasons why the U.S.records one of the highest numbers of private […]
• Exercises for Expression: Drafting Expression About Gun Control in Pennsylvania To evoke the needed emotions from the audience, I would emphasize the effect of lax gun control measures on children and families.
• Gun Control Debate: Problem Analysis and Studies The purpose of this paper is to analyze how empirical research in the USA evaluates the effectiveness of county legislation on the licensing of arms through its influence on the level of violent crime.
• Gun Control: A Matter for Everybody’s Concern In fact, the policies existing in the United States regulating the rules of gun control can be evaluated as sort of frivolous and, thus, causing a row of problems for people’s safety.
• Gun Control Policies: Pros and Cons The purpose of this paper is to analyze the benefits and limitations of gun control. Mass media remains the main source of information about weapons and contributes to the popularity of firearms in society.
• Gun Control: In Favor of a Stronger Law However, it can be said that the gun control law is easy to formulate keeping in view the problems and highly workable within a comparatively small frame of time, say a couple of months.
• Gun Control: Term Definition The main objective of the research would to develop a form of argumentative system that would be instrumental in helping out the policymakers and enable them to lead a normal logical conclusion on the subject […]
• Gun Control versus the Right of Autonomy This discussion presents the ‘harm principle,’ arguments for and against the liberal interpretation of this principle, and presents Lafollette’s reasoning that the banning of guns, particularly handguns does not violate the tenets of this principle.
• Political Sciences: Gun Control Laws The most prominent constitutional issue related to the topic is reflected in the Second Amendment that defends the individual right to keep and bear arms.
• Gun Control in America: Public Opinion & Policies However, although the abolition of the Second Amendment will not be able to solve the problem of shooting entirely, tighter control over the possession of weapons is necessary to ensure greater security for citizens.
• Federalism and Gun Control in the United States 2 Each type of government possesses a set of duties and powers that it can exercise in the region, and the relationship between the levels is established in the Constitution.
• Gun Control Is Not the Answer – Education Is The issue of gun control in the US is a complicated matter due to the extensive history of violence and debates regarding the efficiency of regulations that aim to minimize access to weapons.
• Stricter Gun Control Saves Lives! In conclusion, it is important to emphasize that gun control efforts in the USA are failing as the prevalence of violence in the streets and domestic settings is alarming.
• Gun Control in the US: Empirical Analysis The data collected include the total number of fire arms in the US, the number of people living in poverty, number of people consuming alcohol, population between 18-24 years, and unemployment rate. The number of […]
• Gun Control Legislation in Colorado The success of this issue is explained by the fact that this problem has occurred in the United States long ago and many people grew to support the gun control measures.
• American Gun Control, Limits and Background Checks This shows that extensive limitations on gun ownership and sale can have a considerable impact on gun-related deaths within a country and supports the argument that amendments should be made on the Second Amendment.
• Banning the Possession of Guns Proponents argue that the more uncontrollably the government continues to allow firearms’ possession to the public, the higher the chances of acquisition by the ‘high risks groups’ and hence threatening the public security.
• “The Truth About Mass Shooting and the Gun Control” by Benjamin Domenech Written by Benjamin Domenech, the article, “The truth about a mass shooting and the gun control”, unravels the mysteries behind mass shootings and the ever-controversial topic of gun control.
• The Debate on Gun Control The gun violence has led to the debate on gun control and the recent incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that saw the death of 26 children has reignited the debate and President […]
• Necessitating Gun Control Laws in the US As a matter of fact, the Second Amendment to the constitution of the United States protects the right of people to acquire and own guns.
• Gun Control in US In order for the gun control to ensure a reduction in the rate of crimes, there should be an evaluation of the impact of the gun control policy on availability and accessibility to firearms, especially […]
• Debate of Gun Control in America Those suggesting that ownership of the gun is illegal and unethical observe that the local authorities and the federal agencies in charge of the gun control policy are not doing enough in terms of policy […]

💡 Most Gun Control Topics to Write about

• Gun politics in the United States The movie theatre shootings in Aurora and the more recent school shootings are examples of events that have contributed to the increased gun-control debate. In the article, the authors contribute to the debate on gun […]
• Gun legislation in the United States The second factor that contributes to gun violence in the United States is the fact that guns are made available to the youth.
• Gun Control Pro and Contra For instance in the United States, guns use is the main cause of most of the suicidal and homicide cases. Many Americans think that limitation of use and ownership of guns in the United States […]
• The Evolution of Gun Control Policy in College Campus: The Path to Better Policy Making It is also important to know if the parents or one of the parents have membership in a gun club. There is a need to find out what kind of obstacles will be encountered if […]
• Gun Control: Impact on Crime and Gun Availability This paper will set out to ascertain the impact that gun control laws have on violent crime prevalence and the number of guns available to civilians in the US.
• Proper Gun Control in the U.S. Majority of the Americans also feel that they have the right to possess firearms hence the issue of gun control will only be against their constitutional rights.
• Gun Control in the USA: Inconsistency, Irrationality and Improbability Indeed, taking a closer look at the problem of the use of guns, one will notice that, for the most part, people refer to high crime rates within the state to prove their point.
• Gun Control in Deterring Repeat Offenders It would cost less to enforce gun control regulations than to constantly convict repeat offenders and withstanding the worst of their crimes.
• Gun Registry in Canada The enacting of the law resulted to the formation of Canada Firearm Centre that was meant to foresee the implementation of the program.
• Gun Control Is Important: Here’s Why With regard to whether an individual should have the right to own a gun, it is imperative that one knows that the right to bear arms is an individual and not a collective right.
• Gun Laws regulating and controlling Guns Much as the opponents of firearm regulations have raised strong arguments for the need to continue owning guns, this paper states that the dangerous individuals should be stopped from handling guns in order to stop […]
• Gun Limitation: Proponents and Opponents of Gun Control The proponents have also promised that gun control initiatives are not focused on taking away the rights of Americans to own and use firearms.
• Gun Control Policy: Will it solve suicidal shootings in America? Using ethos, the author has drawn the readers to understand the situation brought by the access of guns to the young people in the United States using the case of Kameron.
• The Gun Control Problems Either way the issue of guns is analyzed, it is clear that the higher the availability and permission to possess firearms, the more chances there are that someone will use weapons.
• The Role of the Government in Providing Policies and Overcoming Crises: Gun Control Laws and Policies The US Government is the main authority in providing the necessary laws and policies in order to regulate all the spheres of the public’s life in the country.
• Gun Control Debate: Security in the U.S. On the other hand, there is another group that opposes any attempt to control guns in this country, citing the security of the civilians when they are denied opportunity to own guns.
• Good Gun Control Law Controversy A good gun control law should be under the control of the federal or central government; therefore, ensuring its inclusion in the constitution.
• The best idea of regulating guns in the United States is restricting the purchase of bullets Reason # 1: Tracking the buyers of bullets makes it easier to regulate guns in the United States Guns are nothing but empty vessels without ammunition and so it would help a great deal if […]
• Gun Control in United States This paper will look at various ways of gun control, the available statistics, background checks of control of guns, ownership of guns and the measures that the United States government has taken to control spread […]
• Should Guns be Limited? We will also aim to show that, contrary to what the majority of na ve people believe, the introduction of more and more gun control laws results in the drastic increase of violent crime rates, […]
• Justice on guns control The argument that possession of the guns by the civilians protects them against the tyranny of the state is frequently advanced.
• Gun Control in Society Being in possession of a gun would allow the individual to employ own capacities for self-protection. On the contrary, more awareness of weapons should be introduced to ensure a higher self-confidence and security among the […]
• Legislative Bans: For and Against the Gun Control The standard checks ensure the medical drugs in use are of superior quality and of higher benefit to the people. Gun control is the legal limitation on the use and ownership of a gun.
• Gun Control: A Case Against Gun Ownership Arguments that current gun control measures are paving the way for a ban on all private ownership of guns are therefore alarmist in nature and should be ignored.
• Guns Should Be Controlled or Restricted in the USA The problem is in fact that the causes of the phenomenon are not only in increasing the atmosphere of violence in the society but also in the availability of the methods to realize the violent […]
• Obama’s Speech on the Issue of Gun Control In the case of the speech “Obama on Gun Control” this takes the form of the President attempting to convince the American public of the righteousness of his cause on the basis of the image […]
• Gun Control in the USA This clause states, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.
• Are Gun Control Laws in the U.S. Protecting Us?
• Will Gun Control Stop Harm or Protect Citizens?
• What Should and Shouldn’t Be Allowed for Better Gun Control?
• Should America Have Stronger Gun Control Laws?
• Where Do Ted Cruz and Beto Orourke Stand in the Debate Over Gun Control?
• How Should the Gun Control Laws Be Less Restrictive?
• Who Supports Gun Control?
• Will Stricter Gun Control Laws Hurt This Country?
• Should Anti-gun Control Be Banned?
• Why Does America Need Stricter Gun Control Laws?
• Does America Need Tighter Gun Control, or Is the Problem Intrinsic to Society?
• Why Won’t Gun Control and Ban on Certain Guns Work in the United States?
• Can Gun Control Prevent Mass Shootings?
• Why Does Gun Control Need to Be Implemented?
• Does Gun Control Control Crime?
• Why Have Most Attempts to Pass Federal Gun Control Legislation Failed?
• Are Stricter Gun Control Laws Needed?
• Why Do People Feel Gun Control Is Unfair?
• Does Gun Control Infringe on a Person’s Constitutional Rights?
• Why Should Gun Control Laws Be Stricter?
• Can Gun Control Solve the Epidemic of Gun Violence?
• Why Does the United States Not Need Gun Control?
• Does Gun Control Lower Crime Rates?
• Are the Laws for Gun Control Sufficient, or Should There Be More?
• Does Gun Control Work or Is the Wrong Issue Being Addressed?
• How Much Gun Control Does America Need?
• Will Gun Control Reduce Crime?
• What Role Should the Government Play in Gun Control?
• Why Should the Gun Control Law Be Allowed?
• Will Gun Control Cause Any Changes in Society?
• Youth Violence Research Topics
• Crime Ideas
• Police Brutality Questions
• Organized Crime Titles
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• Murder Questions
• Criminal Justice Essay Topics
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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AP Photo/ Jessica Hill

Matt Bennett is Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and a co-founder of Third Way. In that capacity, he has served as an adviser on gun policy to Sandy Hook Promise. He previously served in the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs for President Clinton, where he served as the principal White House liaison to governors and covered a wide range of issues, including disaster response, Medicaid, immigration, education and others. Prior to that, Matt served in Vice President Al Gore's office. He was Communications Director of the Clark for President Campaign in 2004, and from 2001-2004 was Director of Public Affairs for Americans for Gun Safety.

I t was the saddest roll call I’ve ever heard. “I’m Nelba; my daughter’s name is Ana; she was six.” “I’m Mark; my son’s name was Daniel; he was seven.” “I’m Nicole; my son’s name is Dylan; he’s six.”

And on it went, as we sat around the table of a sterile conference room at a DC law firm, the confused and confusing mix of tenses signaling the freshness of loss, the impossibility of comprehending it yet. It was late January 2013, barely a month after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and these were the families of some of the victims. Eleven of them had somehow summoned the strength to come to Washington to meet privately with Vice President Biden, members of Congress and cabinet members. But they weren’t here simply to accept high-level condolences. They had come to listen and to learn about mental health and school safety policy. And they were preparing to wade into some of the roughest waters in American politics: the gun debate.

I was there to help them navigate those waters. The families’ DC-based advisor had invited my organization, Third Way—a group deeply involved with efforts to change the gun laws—to give them a sense of what they were in for.

They were preparing to wade into some of the roughest waters in American politics: the gun debate.

Jimmy Greene, holding a photo of his daughter Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, who was killed in the shootings, listens with family members as his wife speaks during the media conference in Newtown, Connecticut on January 14, 2013. Behind him at right, Ian Hockley holds a photograph of his son Dylan, who was also killed in the media conference. One month after the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a group of Newtown citizens organized into a group called Sandy Hook Promise, to honor the lives of lost family and friends and committed to preventing similar tragedies from ever taking place again. The Group met at the Edmond Town Hall in Newtown. (Richard Messina/Hartford Courant/MCT via REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

On January 14, 2013, Sandy Hook Elementary School family members held a news conference in Newtown, Connecticut to announce the launch of Sandy Hook Promise. It was exactly one month after the shooting that claimed the lives of 20 students and six adults, and wounded 14 others. L-R: Sandy Hook parents Nelba Márquez-Green, Nicole Hockley, Mark Barden, Jackie Barden AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Don Emmert

At that moment, with teddy bears still adorning makeshift shrines all over Newtown, it seemed that progress on gun safety would be inevitable. President Obama had given a resolute speech in Connecticut vowing to fight for change, and members of Congress seemed to be reacting more like parents than politicians. Senator Joe Manchin, a gun-owning Democrat from West Virginia, said on television what many Americans were saying at their kitchen tables: “They are killing our babies; this has got to stop.”

As Joe Manchin knew, however, it was never going to be that simple. Time and again, high-profile gun crimes—from assassinations to mass shootings—had seemed to galvanize public opinion. Yet time and again, this sense of urgency had faded, as the gun lobby slowed momentum in Congress to a crawl and then, often, to a halt.

Chris McDonnell (C), father of Grace McDonnell who was killed at Sandy Hook School, speaks during a conference on gun violence as his wife Lynn McDonnell listens (R) and Matt Bennett, Third Way Senior VP of Public Affaires, listen art Western Connecticut State University on February 21, 2013 in Danbury, Connecticut. The conference, held at the school where Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza once took classes, featured panel discussions on ways to reduce gun violence, protect children and make communities safer. Before killing himself, Adam Lanza killed his mother and 26 people inside the Sandy Hook School on Dec. 14. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

I stood before the Sandy Hook families on that day in January to brief them on the basics of gun policy and politics. These are smart, educated people. They assumed that, in the wake of this horror, Congress would pass some long-overdue gun safety measures. By then, however, this much was already clear to the political classes: there wasn’t going to be a renewed ban on assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition magazines, no matter how wrenching the scene in Newtown. Congress just didn’t have the courage to take such a step. The Senate wouldn’t pass it, and the House wouldn’t even consider it.

When I broke this news to the families, one of the mothers let me know, gently but firmly, that I had screwed up. “Don’t tell us what can’t be done, because we just aren’t prepared to hear that,” she said. “Tell us that it could take time, which we can accept, because we’re in this for the long haul. And tell us what we can do now to honor the memory of our children.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVA, meets with Newtown families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims in his office in the Hart Senate Office Building and talks about the gun legislation on April 10, 2013 GETTY IMAGES/Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVA., meets with Newtown families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims in his office in the Hart Senate Office Building and talks about the gun legislation on April 10, 2013 GETTY IMAGES/Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call

The Sandy Hook Promise

N ever before had the families of the victims of a gun massacre come together with such a focused commitment to bring about legislative and social change to Washington. The group I was meeting with, Sandy Hook Promise (SHP), had gotten its start in Newtown in the days after the murders. It began as a gathering in one family’s kitchen, with grief-stricken friends and neighbors of the victims vowing to support their community and to do something good for the country in the wake of such an overwhelming tragedy. Their “promise” was to listen and to learn, to promote dialogue, and to pursue “common sense solutions” in the areas of mental health, school safety and gun responsibility.

Staffed by a sea of volunteers from Newtown and led by a few business professionals who took leave from their jobs to run it, SHP grew with astonishing speed into a sophisticated, effective organization. They enlisted a highly respected Washington consultant, Ricki Seidman, to guide them, and she quickly assembled a team of advisors. Within weeks of the funerals, the staff and volunteers from the community, along with many of the victim families themselves, were already working the corridors of power in Hartford. Eventually, they partnered with Governor Dannel Malloy on a strong new gun safety bill for Connecticut that flew through the legislature and was signed into law less than three months after the murders. At the same time, they began coming to Washington, where they were hoping to achieve a similar result in Congress.

On April 17, 2013, Sandy Hook Promise families got a bitter taste of Senate procedure and gun politics after the defeat of a bipartisan compromise to require criminal background checks for all commercial gun purchases. Mark Barden, left, who lost his son Daniel in Newtown said: "We return home for now, disappointed but not defeated. We return home with a determination that change will happen, maybe not today but soon." L-R: Mark Barden; former Rep. Gabby Giffords; Neil Heslin, father of Jesse Lewis; President Barak Obama; Vice President Joe Biden; Jackie Barden, with daughter Natalie; and Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Tim Makris, the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary fourth-grader who was not hurt in the shootings, is a co-founder of SHP and runs it day-to-day. He and the other leaders of SHP were building the ship as it sailed, putting together an office, staffing it with volunteers, raising money, hiring consultants, tending to the many needs of the Sandy Hook community, and providing a support group for families of the victims as well as for those they call the “survivors”—the 12 kids who made it out alive from the two classrooms that were under attack.

Sandy Hook as a Tipping Point Sandy Hook parent Timothy Makris - who left a successful career to head up the fledgling Sandy Hook Promise - says the Senate vote was a temporary setback that only strengthened the resolve of SHP supporters to find consensus on common ground and common sense solutions to gun safety.

At the same time, Makris and the others, including some of the victim families themselves, were getting a crash-course on Senate procedure, gun policy and, most of all, gun politics. They were beginning to appreciate the degree of moral authority they would wield in this debate—and also the severe limits on this unwanted new power.

On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. White House Press Secretary James Brady, face down at right, and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty, front, were both wounded. Reagan himself was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off the presidential limousine. AP/ Michael Evans

A Short History of Gun Laws

B efore the late 1960s, America had almost no federal or state gun laws. Buying a gun in most states was similar to buying a hammer—one went to a store, picked out a model, paid and left, gun in hand.

The 1968 Act contained a rather large practical flaw: adherence to it was based on the honor system.

After the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968. That law established classes of people banned from buying or possessing firearms: felons, undocumented immigrants, those dishonorably discharged from the military (a category included because of Lee Harvey Oswald) and others, including the mentally ill. The mental health prohibitions were narrow, applying only to those who had been found mentally ill by a court and those involuntarily committed to a mental institution. In later years, domestic abusers were added to the list. The Act also created a federal license for the sale of firearms and a set of rules that applied only to those “in the business” of selling guns. These Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) were, for example, barred from selling handguns to anyone under age 21.

Commonsense as these provisions may have been, the 1968 Act contained a rather large practical flaw: adherence to it was based on the honor system. Because there was no verification method, those who were prohibited from gun ownership could still buy a gun as easily as they could buy beer—more easily in the case of minors, because they at least had to show ID to purchase alcohol. Not surprisingly, few gun buyers volunteered to salespeople, “Oh by the way, I’m a convicted felon.” The law was toothless. And not only was it essentially unenforceable, it didn’t apply even in theory to the many who sold guns but didn’t choose to describe themselves as being in the gun “business.”

Tragic or shocking national events have inspired much of the federal legislative action on gun issues. On October 22, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968 into law. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the five preceding years helped spur the law to passage. LBJ Library

And that was it for federal gun laws over the next 25 years. Some tried to do more. John Hinckley’s attack on President Reagan in 1981 gravely wounded White House Press Secretary James Brady. Afterward, he and his wife Sarah became important advocates for new gun safety provisions.

President Bill Clinton (Right) signs into law the Brady bill as former White House press secretary James Brady, the bill's namesake, looks on November 30, 1993 at the White House. REUTERS

It wasn’t until President Clinton came into office promising to address the crack cocaine-fueled crime epidemic, however, that the Brady Bill got traction. Clinton signed it into law in 1993, a dozen years after the Hinckley attack. For criminals and other prohibited buyers, obtaining a gun finally became a bit more complicated than buying a six-pack (but only, as we’ll see, if one was buying it from an FFL).

On the heels of the Brady Bill success, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) and then-Representative Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) muscled the Assault Weapons Ban across the finish line in 1994. Today, nearly 20 years later, those are the last significant federal gun safety bills to have become law.

In 33 states, private sellers at gun shows are not required to run background checks on buyers. This in effect creates mega-malls where buyers can connect with sellers who aren't picky about their customers. BLOOMBERG via GETTY IMAGES/George Frey

Attendees look at guns at the Rocky Mountain Gun Show in Sandy, Utah, U.S., on Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013. A working group led by Vice President Joe Biden is seriously considering measures that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors. Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Gun Law Loopholes

T he two gun bills that Clinton signed those first years of his presidency were indeed significant. In order to make it through Congress, however, both were engineered with serious flaws built into them.

Since [NICS's] inception in 1998, nearly two million gun sales to potential buyers in the prohibited classes have been stopped by instant checks.

The main impact of the Brady Law was to add teeth to the 1968 Act by requiring that someone actually check to see if a gun buyer falls into a prohibited class. As the Brady Campaign organization now puts it, this was intended to eliminate the “lie-and-buy” practice that allowed criminals and other prohibited classes to get guns. In 1993, the law required a five-day waiting period for gun buyers, in part to allow time for the background check. But that was in the days when online technology was still in its infancy. The provision for a waiting period expired after 1998, when a new National Instant Check System (NICS) run by the FBI came online, allowing for immediate access to a database listing those prohibited from buying guns. (Some states have opted to run their own system, but the FBI maintains the centralized database.)

The Instant Check System got off to a bumpy start, but over time its performance has improved immensely. Now, when a buyer purchases a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer, the seller uses the phone or the Internet to connect to NICS for the background check. More than 90 percent of such checks are completed within five minutes, and most are even quicker. Both licensed gun dealers and law-abiding gun owners generally like the system, which is reliable and very close to “instant.”

In addition to performing reliably and quickly, NICS is achieving much—though not all—of its purpose. Since its inception in 1998, nearly two million gun sales to potential buyers in the prohibited classes have been stopped by instant checks. But 15 years into its effort to compile the necessary information, the data in the Instant Check System vary from excellent to terrible, with the result that not every prohibited class of buyers is equally well monitored.

NICS does a great job tracking felons, most of whom are in the system and effectively stopped from making gun purchases when the checks are run. The information on domestic abusers, provided mainly by the states, is good, though there remain some problems within that category that the states are working to address.

NBC News says Seung-Hui Cho sent this self-portrait to them as he paused between shootings in his rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007. Cho killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. Cho was able to purchase his guns through licensed dealers because he did not reveal that a Virginia court had ordered him to undergo outpatient treatment at a mental health facility. REUTERS/Courtesy of NBC News

The massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech might well have been avoided if Seung-Hui Cho had been in the database, as he should have been.

A major and continuing source of trouble for NICS is the mental health category. For every 10,000 background checks run, only five would-be buyers are denied on grounds of mental health. This country just isn’t that sane. Poor communications and unfounded concerns about patient privacy have meant that too few of the necessary mental health records have made it into the database—sometimes with tragic results. The massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech might well have been avoided if Seung-Hui Cho had been in the database, as he should have been.

Still, the data problem is being addressed, if slowly. Congress has provided incentives, and states are getting their acts together. Some states are now sending hundreds of thousands of previously unavailable mental health records to the database; others continue to lag far behind. Oklahoma, for example, has just three names in the mental health category of the database. The much bigger problem has nothing to do with the database, however, but with the intrinsic design of the Brady Act—the loopholes in the law that allow criminals to get guns.

While the 1968 Act applies to everyone, the Brady Act does not. Only those buying their guns from a licensed dealer must submit to a background check. Now, there are a lot of licensed dealers out there—59,000 at last count, which is almost five times the number of McDonalds franchises in America. But many buyers get their guns from unlicensed sellers, mostly at gun shows or through ads on the Internet. No one knows how many unlicensed sellers there are; their ranks vary from a guy selling off his dad’s hunting rifle to the illegal gun trafficker moving hundreds of weapons per month through online sales.

These are basically mega-malls for criminals, who can generally find all the guns they want from sellers who aren't picky about their customers.

Hard as they are to count, most of them are easy to find. For example, anyone who attends a gun show in one of the 33 states that haven’t fixed this loophole by requiring that background checks be performed by all sellers at such shows will have no trouble spotting the tables with signs that say “no questions asked.” The licensed dealers at these shows—and there are about a hundred such events every weekend, many of them involving thousands of vendors—are running background checks on their buyers; the so-called “private sellers” at the next table over are not. So if you were a felon or a domestic abuser, where would you go to buy your gun? These are basically mega-malls for criminals, who can generally find all the guns they want from sellers who aren’t picky about their customers.

Adam Gadahn, an American member of Al-Qaeda, Jan 6 2008.Gadahn actually released a video message noting how easy it is to buy guns in the U.S. and urging fellow radicals to take advantage. AFP/Getty Images

"You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?" -Adam Gadahn

Then there is the Internet, with sites like armslist.com. The New York Times recently took a look at that site and found about 170,000 guns for sale during their three-month investigation. Ninety-four percent of the ads were posted by private sellers, meaning that it’s easy pickings for prohibited buyers who do their shopping online. The Times didn’t have to look far to find felons and domestic abusers both buying and selling guns. As long as they are buying from someone in the same state, there is no need to involve a dealer and no background check is required.

The gun show and Internet loopholes are obvious not only to garden-variety criminals. In 2001 federal authorities convicted Hezbollah agent Ali Boumelhem for buying assault weapons at a Michigan gun show and attempting to ship them to his compatriots in Lebanon. Even al-Qaida has taken notice. In 2011, the group posted a video by American-born spokesman Adam Gadahn noting how easy it is to buy guns without background checks in the U.S. “You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card,” Gadahn remarks. “So what are you waiting for?”

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004. Here, Tom Mannewitz, who runs the Target Masters Shooting Range in Garland, Texas, displays several United States-made assault-style rifles. After the Sandy Hook shootings Mannewitz was quoted as saying, "Instances like this create a knee jerk reaction. They've got to look at something to vilify. And it's easier to vilify a gun, than a system that has holes in it, that needs to be fixed." REUTERS/Jeff Mitchell JM

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004. Here, Tom Mannewitz, who runs the Target Masters Shooting Range in Garland, Texas, displays several United States-made assault-style rifles. After the Sandy Hook shootings Mannewitz was quoted as saying, "Instances like this create a knee jerk reaction. They've got to look at something to vilify. And it's easier to vilify a gun, than a system that has holes in it, that needs to be fixed." REUTERS/Jeff Mitchell JM

The Assault Weapons Ban

The Assault Weapons Ban, which most supporters assumed—wrongly— would be renewed after its 2004 expiration date, has been off the books for almost a decade.

M ost modern firearms sold in the U. S. are semi-automatic, meaning that they fire one round with each trigger-pull and automatically eject the spent cartridge; they can be fired again on the next trigger-pull without being cocked. (Fully automatic “machine guns,” which keep firing with a single pull of the trigger, are largely banned from civilian possession.) Semi-automatics use removable magazines or “clips,” and they can be handguns or rifles.

While most guns are now semi-automatic, they vary tremendously in size, shape, range, speed and accuracy. Some firearms with enormous power are built to act and look like weapons of war, and in the 1980s they earned the moniker “assault weapons.” (The gun lobby rejects that name, preferring “modern sporting rifles”). Many of these very lethal weapons began falling into the wrong hands. The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 was born of a complaint voiced by law enforcement that they were being outgunned in the crack wars. The police, often armed with pistols of an earlier era, were battling street gangs wielding assault weapons like TEC-9s and AK-47s.

As civilian and police casualties mounted, advocates launched a campaign to ban assault weapons, as well as magazines that could carry more than 10 rounds. The Senate debate over the ban was heated. At one point, Idaho Senator Larry Craig (R) said to then-freshman Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) that “the gentlelady from California needs to become a little bit more familiar with firearms and their deadly characteristics.” Feinstein replied icily: “I am quite familiar with firearms. I became mayor as a product of assassination. I found my assassinated colleague [Harvey Milk] and put a finger through a bullet hole trying to get a pulse. Senator, I know something about what firearms can do.”

Reacting to the Sandy Hook shootings and other recent mass shootings,Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, saying: "Mass shootings in Newtown, Aurora, and Tucson have demonstrated all too clearly the need to regulate military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. These weapons allow a gunman to fire a large number of rounds quickly and without having to reload." Feinstein is a veteran of the 1994 battles over assault weapons legislation. GETTY IMAGES/Alex Wong

The NRA-led opposition launched a fierce battle against the ban. In the end, a deal was cut to salvage it, albeit in a form that drained it of much of its effectiveness. The sponsors had to make three main concessions to get the ban through Congress. First, it would expire in 10 years. Second, it would not be retroactive, meaning assault weapons produced before the date of enactment would remain legal. There were hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of those (no one knows how many), so the ban left a lot of assault weapons on the street. Finally, the ban was limited to a list of 18 specific models of firearms (e.g., Uzis and MAC-10s), along with any guns that contained two or more of a list of military-style attributes. Since there is not a huge market demand for many of these features—among them bayonet mounts and grenade launchers—this constituted little hardship for either buyers or manufacturers.

As a result of these concessions, the Assault Weapons Ban, which most supporters assumed—wrongly—would be renewed after its 2004 expiration date, has been off the books for almost a decade. And its record of success during the ten years it did remain in effect is mixed. Some academics and other criminologists argue that if it had remained in place, the benefits would have begun to be realized by now. However, the ease with which gun makers were able to sidestep the ban even before it expired suggests that its effect on gun violence would have been minimal.

Friends of Chase Kowalski, one of the victims of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, take part in the March on Washington for Gun Control on January 26, 2013 in Washington. AFP GETTY IMAGES/Yuri Gripas

Would Tougher Laws Have Prevented Sandy Hook?

They were committing themselves to the passage of gun safety laws that had no actual bearing on the crime that had torn apart their own lives.

R ecognizing the treacherous politics and questionable impact of the Assault Weapons Ban, the Sandy Hook Promise group had initially wanted to put their efforts into a bill that would limit the permissible size of magazines. This made sense to them, because when they first entered the gun debate, their focus was on the specifics of the crime that had taken the lives of their loved ones. Adam Lanza was armed with two pistols, but his main weapon that day was a Bushmaster .223 caliber AR-15 assault rifle, which he loaded—and reloaded—with ten 30-round high-capacity magazines and twenty 20-round magazines; his 700 rounds were enough to kill everyone in the school. He fired 154 rounds in about four minutes. It was in the brief intervals when he was changing magazines that several children managed to escape. Had Lanza been forced to reload 16 times rather than six (as he would have with standard 10-round magazines), the Sandy Hook parents believe that many of their children would be alive today.

"He fired 154 rounds in about four minutes. It was in the brief intervals when he was changing magazines that several children managed to escape."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, left, and Sen. Dan Coats, R-IN, wait in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery for arriving senators for a news conference on alternative gun legislation on Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, is seen on the television monitors speaking on the Senate floor about gun control legislation. GETTY IMAGES/ Bill Clark

Firearms Training Unit Detective Barbara J. Mattson of the Connecticut State Police holds up a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, the same make and model of gun used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook School shooting, for a demonstration during a hearing of a legislative subcommittee reviewing gun laws, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Conn., Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. The parents of children killed in the Newtown school shooting called for better enforcement of gun laws Monday at the legislative hearing. AP Photo/Jessica Hill

As I discovered, it is an awesome and terrible thing to look into the eyes of the mother of a recently murdered six-year-old who believes, perhaps correctly, that her child would be alive today if our laws had been sensible enough to have limited the number of rounds in a magazine. And it is almost as tough to have to tell such parents that Congress wasn't about to take that step even now. But after I did so, to their great credit they summoned the courage to ask what kind of gun legislation would be possible and what role they could play to help get it passed.

In asking these questions, the families of Sandy Hook Promise began their transformation from deeply sympathetic victim-advocates into a force to be reckoned with in the modern gun debate. While continuing to pursue a long-range goal of limiting magazine size, they decided to focus in the near-term on legislation that could have an immediate impact on gun violence: closing the gun show and Internet loopholes by requiring that all such sales go through FFLs, who can and must run background checks. Perhaps what is most remarkable about their decision is that they were committing themselves to the passage of gun safety laws that had no actual bearing on the crime that had torn apart their own lives. The guns Adam Lanza used in his assault had been stolen from his mother, his first victim, and Nancy Lanza had been in lawful possession of those firearms—she passed background checks for their purchase and registered them (as is required in Connecticut). The families knew that legislation regulating the sales of weapons at gun shows or over the Internet would have done nothing to save their children.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Matt Bennett Talk Gun Politics Politicians acting like parents, background checks, high-capacity magazines, national sentiment, terrorists, gun shows, the NRA, and what’s different after Sandy Hook.

A model for this kind of public-spirited thinking is the work of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee. In the years after their own tragedy, that group pursued a suite of legislative measures that included everything from creating the Department of Homeland Security to changing how intelligence is gathered and shared. Almost none of these ideas, had they been in place on September 11, would have played a role in stopping Mohammed Atta or the others. But they believed they were making the country safer for everyone, and that was enough. The same was true for the families of Sandy Hook Promise.

Nagel's Gun Shop opened in 1942 and calls itself one of the largest family-owned gun stores in Texas. In the days after the Sandy Hook shooting Nagel salespeople reported an unprecedented run on sales . GETTY IMAGES/Gilles Mingasson

Nagel's Gun Shop opened in 1942 and calls itself one of the largest family-owned gun stores in Texas. In the days after the Sandy Hook shooting Nagel salespeople reported an unprecedented run on sales. GETTY IMAGES/Gilles Mingasson

So Many Guns in America, So Many Ways to Get Them

T he question of how to make the country safer from the carnage of gun violence is vital, because the assassinations and mass murders that galvanize our attention every so often actually account for only a small percentage of gun-related deaths. Beyond the headlines there is a steady daily tally of violence that is mainly ignored in the press. The total number of gun deaths per year is about 31,000. This includes roughly 11,400 murders, 19,000 suicides and 600 accidental shootings—more than 10 firearms deaths per 100,000 people every year. By contrast, Japan, which has strict gun control laws, has 0.07 per 100,000, and Switzerland, where most citizens have guns in the home, has 3.84. In addition to deaths, the U.S. has about 80,000 firearms-related injuries annually and 500,000 crimes involving a firearm every year—about one per minute.

Americans have stockpiled almost half of the privately owned firearms in the world.

Because there is no national database of guns or gun owners, no one knows how many guns are in private hands in the U. S. According to polling, the rate of gun ownership (the percentage of households containing one or more firearms) has actually been falling over the last two decades, but the total number of guns in private possession has gone up sharply, from 200 million in 1994 to somewhere between 270 and 300 million today.

When we compare ourselves to other countries (using the latest data, from the 2007 Small Arms Survey ), we find that the U.S. has by far the highest rate of private gun ownership in the world: 88 guns per 100 people. (Next on the list is Yemen, at 55 guns per 100.) At the conservative estimate of 270 million guns, Americans have stockpiled almost half of the privately owned firearms in the world.

The overwhelming majority of those guns are in the possession of responsible, law-abiding adults. But that leaves plenty that are not. The question confronting lawmakers is how to stop a legal product from getting into the hands of those who would use it for illegal purposes.

The answer begins with understanding where criminals get their guns, and we actually know a lot about that. First, in 90 percent of gun crimes, the firearm has changed hands at least once since the original sale, meaning that someone other than the first dealer provided the gun to the criminal. Second, about one-third of the guns involved in crime have crossed state lines, despite the federal prohibition against moving guns interstate. Third, the most common age of those who commit crimes with guns is 19, followed by 20, followed by 18, despite the fact that licensed dealers are not permitted to sell handguns to anyone under 21 (and virtually all gun crimes are committed with handguns). Taken together, these data suggest that crime guns tend to come from an interstate network of gun traffickers that moves guns out of the legal market and into the hands of criminals and minors. The traffickers who provide these crime guns get them from dealers (often through the use of “straw” purchasers who go through the background check for others), from theft, or from unregulated “private sales” at gun shows or through the Internet.

This still image from a school security camera shows Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold, carrying a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol, stalking the cafeteria at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado. The April 20, 1999 rampage left 12 students and one teacher dead. Both gunmen killed themselves. One of their guns came from an unlicensed dealer at a gun show. REUTERS

...after the [Columbine] attack she testified that she would not have gone through with the transaction had she been asked to submit to a background check.

The patterns and sources of crime gun trafficking have been well known for a long time. Then-Representative Schumer was issuing reports about the so-called “iron highway” of black-market firearms as far back as 1996. But his was a lonely voice, and few put any effort into erecting roadblocks to stem the flow of this traffic.

The massacre at Columbine High School in 1999 changed that by spotlighting a main on-ramp to this highway: gun shows. One of the guns used by those underage killers was obtained for them by a girlfriend who was unaware of their plan. She bought it from an unlicensed seller at a gun show, and after the attack she testified that she would not have gone through with the transaction had she been asked to submit to a background check.

After Columbine, the billionaire CEO of Monster.com, Andrew McKelvey, decided to get involved in the gun debate. McKelvey had never been political and had no personal connection to gun violence. But the tragedy spurred him to action. Dissatisfied with the existing gun control groups, he founded Americans for Gun Safety (AGS), which focused on closing the gun show loophole. (This was before the days of online gun sales and sites like armslist.com, so the gun show loophole was the only one that mattered.) I went to work for AGS in 2001, and in 2005, we folded AGS into a broader think tank, Third Way, the organization I work for now.

At AGS, we recruited Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) to co-sponsor a federal bill requiring that all vendors at gun shows run background checks on their buyers, and we pushed hard. After 9/11, in order to show how easily terrorists could exploit the Brady Act loopholes, we highlighted Hezbollah Agent Ali Boumelhem’s purchase of assault weapons at a gun show. However, gun safety advocacy was a tough job in the early years of George W. Bush's presidency. Conservative Republicans controlled the White House, Senate and House, and they were none too friendly to such initiatives. Even so, AGS had a few successes at the federal level, including legislation to improve the quality of the data provided to the National Instant Check System, and a temporary win in the Senate on gun shows which caught the NRA by surprise.

But in the years after Columbine, despite cascading gun crime rates and some extraordinary and high-profile massacres, Congress simply refused to move. It took Adam Lanza’s act of madness to force the issue again.

Hundreds of gun owners and enthusiasts attend a rally for gun appreciation day at the State Capitol in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 19, 2013 - just five weeks after the Sandy Hook Shootings. Rick Hartford/Hartford Courant/MCT via Getty Images

Hundreds of gun owners and enthusiasts attend a rally for gun appreciation day at the State Capitol in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 19, 2013. Many people wore green ribbons in solidarity with citizens of Newtown where 20 children and six adults were killed by a gunman Dec. 14. Rick Hartford/Hartford Courant/MCT via Getty Images

A Burning Passion for Guns

B ecause of what they have gone through, you would assume that the Sandy Hook families would be greeted with universal demonstrations of respect, kindness and sympathy, even by those who disagree with the legislative goals they are pursuing. But you would be wrong. When two of the families went to Hartford for a state legislative hearing in late January, some gun rights proponents made national news by heckling Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse was killed in the massacre. Dozens of activists in the crowd shouted “Second Amendment!” as Heslin testified.

"Some of the families received calls, emails and letters insisting that they were actors and liars, playing their part in an Obama-led scheme to abrogate gun rights."

The outbursts in the Connecticut capitol drew widespread opprobrium. Yet this was hardly the worst of what the families have suffered at the hands of some gun-rights supporters. Indeed, a full-fledged conspiracy theory was hatched in the fevered fantasies of some Second Amendment absolutists. They accused the families of creating a “hoax,” of faking the deaths of their children and adult loved ones. Facebook pages and YouTube channels were launched to “prove” this proposition. And some of the families received calls, emails and letters insisting that they were actors and liars, playing their part in an Obama-led scheme to abrogate gun rights.

Though a distinct minority, this group has come to control the terms of the gun debate, exercising a power that vastly exceeds their numbers.

This harassment of families in the midst of their deepest grief added a new level of barbarity to the debate over guns in America. And it made clear that for some, guns are a flashpoint in our politics that burns as hot as anything we have seen since the civil rights movement.

From Lee- Need source and caption

It is not clear where all of this passion comes from, because the headwaters of the American gun culture have never been discovered. It could be our frontier spirit; it could be our libertarian ethos; it could be the Second Amendment itself. Whatever the source, Americans in much of the country have developed the belief that gun ownership is somewhere on the continuum between being a legal privilege and a nearly sacred right.

Approximately 100 million adults live in a home with a gun. (The term “gun owner” can be slippery when it comes to family-owned firearms.) They break down roughly into three groups: those who own guns mainly for sport, those who own guns for protection, and those who own guns as a bulwark against government tyranny.

Numerous polls show that the overwhelming majority of people in the first two groups (sport shooters and home protectors) is comfortable with the kinds of common-sense restrictions on gun ownership advocated by the Sandy Hook parents. The third group, however, is made up of what we could call the “constitutionalists.” Though a distinct minority, this group has come to control the terms of the gun debate, exercising a power that vastly exceeds their numbers. Their principle mechanism for wielding this power is, of course, the NRA.

The National Rifle Association is nearly 150 years old and claims a membership of 4.5 million. For most of its history, the NRA was a stolid, safety-oriented group: think AAA. They handed out safe shooter patches to summer campers and worked on land conservation. At the annual NRA convention in 1977, however, the “Cincinnati Revolution” upended those traditions. Constitutionalists ousted the old leadership and installed a new, hard-line regime focused on the absolute protection of gun rights and broader conservative political activism.

Members of the North Florida Survival Group wait with their rifles before heading out to perform enemy contact drills during a field training exercise in Old Town, Florida, December 8, 2012. The group trains children and adults alike to handle weapons and survive in the wild. The group passionately supports the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms and its website states that it aims to teach "patriots to survive in order to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemy threats." Picture taken December 8, 2012. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

Members of the North Florida Survival Group listen as their leader critiques their performance during an enemy contact drill training exercise in Old Town, Florida, December 8, 2012. The group trains children and adults alike to handle weapons and survive in the wild. The group passionately supports the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms and its website states that it aims to teach "patriots to survive in order to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemy threats." REUTERS/Brian Blanco

Who these constitutionalists are and how many they number we don’t know with any certainty. Some are anti-government conspiracy theorists who believe that the “black helicopters” are coming to take their guns. In the 1990s, the most radical of these formed so-called “militias” that refused to pay taxes or honor gun laws. They were the catalyst for the sieges and shootings at Ruby Ridge and Waco, and they spawned Timothy McVeigh, the main bomber of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995.

While most constitutionalists do not advocate violence, they are resolute about gun rights and gun ownership. They believe that gun laws actually make communities less safe by disarming the good guys. Post-Newtown, this was reflected in the NRA’s central proposal, which was to put armed guards in schools and to give teachers gun training. And they reject any gun safety measure, no matter how small, as a Second Amendment violation. When they join the NRA, the constitutionalists subscribe not to American Rifleman , the NRA’s magazine for mainstream sport-shooters; they get America’s 1st Freedom , the NRA’s hardline journal for their most committed core.

By 1991, when staff lobbyist Wayne LaPierre ascended to the post of executive vice president, the NRA had become the uncompromising political behemoth we know today. LaPierre has remained in power ever since, while the more ceremonial post of NRA president has rotated. Sometimes they have camera-ready presidents like Charlton Heston; at the moment they have James Porter, an ultra-conservative Alabama lawyer who calls the Civil War “the War of Northern Aggression.”

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, speaks during the National Rifle Association's 139th annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina May 15, 2010. REUTERS/Chris Keane

The NRA under LaPierre has never deviated from its goals, never softened its tone, no matter what the context. Only seven months after 9/11, LaPierre gave a speech at the NRA convention where he attacked Americans for Gun Safety for trying to “hijack your freedom and take a box-cutter to the Constitution.” “That’s political terrorism,” he thundered, “and it’s a far-greater threat to your freedom than any foreign force."

The NRA’s political bullying extends beyond their rhetoric. When AGS recruited John McCain to work with us on the gun show loophole legislation, the NRA turned on him. Despite his previous A-rating, the NRA attacked him publicly and threatened him with political war in private. They’ve done the same with countless other lawmakers, and they have made enemies; former President George H.W. Bush quit the group in disgust in 1995 when LaPierre called federal agents “jack-booted thugs... wearing Nazi helmets and black storm trooper uniforms.”

Similar bullying—of friends who don’t toe the line—occurs even within the gun industry. When the iconic firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson agreed to a deal with the Clinton administration on the issue of trigger locks, the NRA called for a boycott. Smith & Wesson sales dropped 40 percent, after which the company went private, fired its management and abrogated its agreement with the White House.

The gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, has followed the NRA’s lead on all things political. As a result, the NSSF has refused to endorse the Senate gun safety bill. That might not be surprising if it weren’t for one fact: the NSSF headquarters is in Newtown, Connecticut—less than three miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Tom Bittman, a Sandy Hook Promise co-founder, speaks at the January 2013 launch of the organization. In the three months that followed, the group managed to work to create a strong new gun safety law for Connecticut and inspire a bi-partisan gun safety bill in the U.S. Senate. Though the Senate bill was defeated, Sandy Hook Promise has established itself as a force to be reckoned with that's in it for the long haul. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin

Sandy Hook Families: Still in the Arena

I n the months between the Sandy Hook shootings and the April gun bill debate in the Senate, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer were back in the saddle again, working to cut a deal that could survive an NRA onslaught. From the White House, the vice president was corralling the gun safety groups, coaxing the lawmakers and cajoling the public. In the Senate, Schumer was running the inside game, trying to find an NRA-approved Republican to make a match with his NRA-friendly Democrat, Joe Manchin.

Valiant Efforts to Pass a Bill In a twist, Sandy Hook parents Francine and David Wheeler stood in for President Barack Obama on the April 13, 2013 Your Weekly Address from the White House. Fighting through tears, Francine shared stories of their son Ben, and asked American voters to urge their senator to vote for a bill to close the gun show and Internet loopholes. It wasn't enough.

On the eve of the Senate debate, they succeeded. Pat Toomey, a conservative Pennsylvania Republican, agreed to co-sponsor legislation with Manchin that would close the gun show and Internet loopholes. The announcement of the Manchin-Toomey amendment helped overcome a filibuster, with 16 Republicans joining most Democrats in voting to proceed to the debate.

That week, Tim Makris and a sizable group of SHP families were in town to lobby. The level of their newfound sophistication about Washington and gun policy was impressive. After they were briefed on the contents of Manchin-Toomey, they immediately began pressing target Senators to support the bill. They were told time and again that the bill would never have progressed this far without them and that they had much to be proud of.

For the first time in the modern history of the debate, a gun safety vote has had a negative impact on the approval rating of Senators voting "no"... and a positive impact on red-state senators voting "yes"

It’s often the case that some of the most effective advocates in American politics are people who have a personal stake in an issue. Those seeking funding for serious diseases, including nearly every variety of cancer, have perfected the art of cause-based lobbying. They bring people who are suffering from the illness, photos of family members lost to it, testimonials to the pain and misery endured by their loved ones, and PowerPoints replete with statistics and data. They are routinely granted audiences with congressional staff members to make their case.

Connecticut is Now a Test Tube Reacting to the Sandy Hook shootings, Connecticut passed the most comprehensive gun control measures in U.S. history. Brookings expert, John Hudak predicts how these laws will inform social science and the future of the Second Amendment.

But it is a rare thing for such advocates to be granted time with almost any senator they ask to meet—rarer still for them to be able to move even the most jaded of these lawmakers to tears by bringing out a photo of a smiling six-year-old child. Yet that keeps happening with the Sandy Hook families. Vice President Biden has remarked that it is impossible to meet with these families and not become emotional “unless you’re made of stone.” Indeed, almost every meeting they do results in senators and members of Congress weeping as they hear the stories of Newtown.

"But these families don’t want sympathy. They want a bill signed into law, and that was not to be—at least not yet."

But these families don’t want sympathy. They want a bill signed into law, and that was not to be—at least not yet. Mounting a furious lobbying campaign, the NRA held onto all but four Republicans and enough wayward Democrats (four) that the final 54-46 tally on April 17 fell six votes short of the threshold necessary to send the amendment on for a majority-rules, up-or-down vote.

Public reaction has been swift and surprising. For the first time in the modern history of the debate, a gun safety vote has had a negative impact on the approval rating of Senators voting “no” (even in red and purple states like Alaska, Arizona and New Hampshire) and a positive impact on red-state senators voting “yes” (Louisiana and North Carolina).

Further reading

Applauding Connecticut's Gun Control Legislation April 4, 2013, John Hudak

The Connecticut Shootings: Now is the Time for a Debate over Gun Control December 14, 2012, Darrell M. West

Aurora and the U.S. Obsession with Guns: Leadership Wanted to Fight Political Capture July 23, 2012, Daniel Kaufmann

What Happens If the Supreme Court Recognizes Individual Gun Rights? Not Much March 21, 2008, Benjamin Wittes

In that political shift, there is hope. Most of those who voted “no” surely know that they did the wrong thing by opposing the expansion of background checks in commercial settings. If they believe they erred not just morally and substantively but politically, they will change. Many are pushing them to do so, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which brings deep policy expertise and massive financial resources to the fight. Others, including Vice President Biden, Senators Manchin and Schumer, former Representative Gabby Giffords and her group Americans for Responsible Solutions, Third Way, the Center for American Progress, and the Brady Campaign are also pressing the case.

Still in the arena as well are the families of Sandy Hook. Despite the glare of a spotlight that has forced them to repeatedly relive their darkest hour and subjected them to a stunning level of personal vitriol, they continue to come to Washington, meet with senators and talk to the press. They accepted early on that this was a long road—that a 20-year gridlock on gun policy was not likely to change in an instant.

The motto of Sandy Hook Promise is: “Our hearts are broken; Our spirit is not.” And the extraordinary generosity of spirit that these brave people bring to this nasty, brutish political debate could, in the end, make all the difference.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #BrookingsEssay or share this on Facebook .

Like other products of the Institution, The Brookings Essay is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are solely those of the author.

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The Auckland Mass Shooting: a Tragedy at the Women's World Cup 2023

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The Shooting of Ralph Yarl: Unraveling the Racial Dynamics and Gun Violence

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The Gun Control Laws And Gun Violence In America

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The Link Between Violence In Video Games And Gun Violence In America

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The Rise Of Gun Violence Because Of Video Game Violence

A constant threat of violence lurked from January 2019 to May 2019. A ridiculous eight school shootings would occur, each varying in intensity. The United States was on edge, looking for a reason why their children had to risk their lives in order to pursue...

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Gun Violence In America: Protection Of Citizen Rights

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Gun Violence In America: The Issue Of Mass Shootings

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The Advertisement Analysis Of The Anti Gun Violence Campaign

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The Need To Ban Guns To Decrease Gun Violence In America

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Gun Violence And Gun Control: The Influence On America

When thinking of America, many people recall the great things one loves about this country. People can explain the many ways to achieve lifelong dreams and goals. They are able to ramble about the vacation spots, business opportunities, and celebrities who reside in America. What...

Dissecting Obama's Speech On School Shooting And Gun Violence

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• Barack Obama
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Gun Violence In America: Inexcusable Death Rates And Shootings

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Gun Control Laws On Gun Violence In America

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Columbine Shooting and Relation to Gun Violence in America in Bowling for Columbine

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Second Amendment: Gun Violence Statistics

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Gun Violence And Mass Shooting In The United States

The world is being taken over by gun violence, on average 96 people are killed by guns in the United States every day. I will be comparing the number of gun violence and mass shooting in the United States over a long period of time...

Best topics on Gun Violence

1. Examining the Pros and Cons of Gun Control

2. The Auckland Mass Shooting: a Tragedy at the Women’s World Cup 2023

3. The Shooting of Ralph Yarl: Unraveling the Racial Dynamics and Gun Violence

4. The Gun Control Laws And Gun Violence In America

5. The Link Between Violence In Video Games And Gun Violence In America

6. The Rise Of Gun Violence Because Of Video Game Violence

7. Gun Violence In America: Protection Of Citizen Rights

8. Gun Violence In America: The Issue Of Mass Shootings

9. The Risk Of Increased Homicide Rates Due To Gun Violence In America

10. On Gun Violence In America: The Need For Action

11. The Advertisement Analysis Of The Anti Gun Violence Campaign

12. The Need To Ban Guns To Decrease Gun Violence In America

13. Gun Violence And Gun Control: The Influence On America

14. Dissecting Obama’s Speech On School Shooting And Gun Violence

15. Gun Violence In America: Inexcusable Death Rates And Shootings

• Jeffrey Dahmer
• Animals Testing
• Effects of Drinking and Driving
• Serial Killer
• School Shooting
• Charles Manson
• Identity Theft

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Gun Control Essay: Goals, Topics, And How to Write

13 October, 2020

14 minutes read

Author:  Mathieu Johnson

The issue of gun control is yet one of the top topics for heated debates. Some people have rather a negative opinion regarding gun control; others support it and believe that loose gun control rules lead to violence and devastation. And since the topic of gun control is represented by a multitude of contrasting opinions, it might be the topic for your next college paper.

The subject of gun control is an ongoing question, that is why many students either get assigned  a gun control essay or do so for personal motives. What to include in your gun control essay and how to outline your ideas? You can find the answers to your questions in this guide.

Gun Control Essay: Definitions, Goals & Topics

Once you get assigned a gun control essay, you first need to make sure that you fully understand what a paper’s main idea is. As you can tell from the name ‘gun control essay’, such an essay asks you to indicate your opinion regarding restrictive regulations of gun use and production. While most countries have been limiting gun possession to minimize the risk of innocent people dying, the USA hasn’t. On the contrary, the US has persuasive gun control, meaning that almost anyone can buy and hold a gun. Many people share an idea that gun possession should be limited and permitted only to particular categories of people, that is why the question is very ongoing.  So the most critical goal of a gun control essay is to present reasonable ideas about why people need or don’t need gun control. 

Some of the compelling and relevant topics for a gun control essay may be:

• Gun ownership promotes violence among young people
• Gun ownership is unlikely to prevent some people from murdering 
• Gun possession as the only way to protect oneself
• The wide accessibility of guns is the reason for suicides in the US

Gun Control Essay Titles

When writing a pro gun control essay, your initial task is to pick an intriguing, catchy title. You shouldn’t underestimate the importance of such a step if your goal is to attract the reader’s attention and make them aware of a topic. The thing to keep in mind is intriguing the audience and making them willing to take a deep dive into the subject. If you have no precise vision of which title to choose, take a look at a few tips we prepared for you.

First and foremost, you need to have a precise position regarding gun control in America. Are you a supporter, or are you firmly against gun control? Since there is yet a heated debate on this issue in the USA, you can decide to write either a for or against essay on gun control. 

Titles supporting gun control: 

• Violence has never solved any problem
• Guns out of control: why should innocent people die?
• Youth violence as the result of no gun control

Titles opposing gun control:

• Gun control won’t prevent people from killing 
• Gun control: why should we sacrifice our lives just because we can’t defend ourselves?
• Illegal weapons trade as the only guaranteed outcome of gun control.

Gun Control Essay Structure

Most likely, you already know that a good structure largely predicts the success of a gun control argumentative essay. Whenever you are willing to present your opinion on a specific issue and want to convince the audience that your arguments are valid, you should sound logical. The ultimate way to make your gun control essay structure coherent and comprehensive is to draw an outline and plan the essay thoroughly. To assure that your argumentative essay on gun control communicates your idea to the reader, make sure to follow the structure that includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Introduction 

It would help if you organized your gun control essay introduction in a way that serves as an attention grabber. Namely, you can feel free to include some rhetorical question at the beginning or literally any good essay hook. To grab the reader’s attention, you may also outline some background information so that a reader grasps the idea of your gun control persuasive essay. And last but not least, don’t forget to introduce the most important part of a gun control essay outline – a thesis statement. A sound thesis statement gives a reader a general understanding of what you will cover in your essay.

Main body paragraphs’ role is to reveal what you mentioned in the thesis statement. Since your gun control essay will most likely be argumentative, you need to devote one paragraph to one argument. In each and every body paragraph, your main task is to build on some solid evidence and refer to numbers or facts to protect your position. It is better to include 3-5 body paragraphs so that the gun control essay doesn’t look messy. 

When writing a gun control essay conclusion, you should avoid adding any extra information. Try to be very precise and make sure you restate the arguments you have indicated before. All in all, your gun control essay should logically end up with a summary of all the points. The reader has to be 100% sure that he or she fully comprehended your idea. 

Best Tips For Writing Gun Control Essay

An outline is everything.

Create an outline even if you think that this step isn’t indeed necessary. Even when you have all those sparkling ideas and structure in your mind, it requires no effort to confuse them. And if we talk about an argumentative essay, it is fundamental for you as a writer to sound convincing and confident. An outline helps you to sound so. Hence, don’t neglect dedicating a few minutes to creating a helpful essay plan.  

Find some convincing evidence 

The goal of any gun control essay is to communicate an idea of why strict gun control is necessary or should be abandoned. After reading your essay, the audience will form an exact opinion: gun control is either good or bad. Try to search for some substantial evidence, numbers, particular cases that you find helpful while supporting your arguments. Otherwise, you undermine the chances of being heard. 

Write about the topic that bothers you 

Don’t try to figure up titles and topics that aren’t interesting for you. The point of a gun control essay is to make your voice heard and to be sincere while presenting your ideas. Try to give some ideas the way you see them, discuss only those topics that cannot let you stay indifferent. Only in this way will you end up with an excellent essay. 

Edit and proofread

Once your essay is ready, don’t forget to proofread it and check it at least twice. So many excellent essays get a terrible score just because some minor mistakes spoiled the general impression! You can use a wide array of means to make sure your paper is polished: ask your friends to check it, use online tools, or ask a professional essay writing and editing service to get your paper checked by an expert.

Gun Control Essay Examples

If you feel like you need to refer to an example to get a profound insight into an idea of a gun control essay, here is one for you.  

Strict gun control deprives people of their legal rights

The US is the country in which the share of people who own a gun is impressively high. Besides, there is no single country in the world that can be compared to the US by the number of firearms in the citizen’s hands. According to the official statistics, 80 percent of adults own a gun, meaning that the likelihood of  a stranger you come across in the street possessing one are unbelievably significant. Recently, several regulations attempted to restrict gun possession to impose gun control. However, gun control is not only unjustifiable, but it also deprives people of their right for self-defence and peaceful life.

First and foremost, gun control, unfortunately, does not reduce the murder and crime rates in the US. Although it should generally hold true, the statistics contradict the misbelief that limiting gun possession minimizes the number of crimes committed. The research on weapon ban which was carried out during the past twenty years demonstrates that there is no correlation between reducing gun ownership and a falling number of murder cases. The research also indicated that the states that imposed strict gun control have witnessed a larger number of crimes.

This all leads to the conclusion that imposing a ban on gun possession is not a way to fight crime. Also, as the evidence shows, the number of guns in the US had been steadily growing in the last century, and this coincided with a decrease in the number of crimes committed. Essentially, gun control is unlikely to resolve the issue of crimes, since some people are likely to commit crimes even when they have no gun at their disposal.

Another argument against gun control is that the first inevitably infringe the citizen’s rights, Namely, banning weapons contradicts the right that the constitution of the US guarantees. According to the second amendment, under no circumstances should the citizen’s rights to possess a gun  be infringed. The right to own a gun had already existed long before many countries appeared on the map. That is why many people deem gun control as a crime against humanity. Even though there is yet some logical explanation to an attempt to control gun usage and manufacturing, it still deprives US citizens of their inviolable right.

What is even more, the supreme court together with the constitution considers gun ownership as one of the liberties that all the US citizens have. Just like the freedom of speech, the space to protect oneself is crucial, and it should remain untouchable. Introducing gun control, therefore, leads to violating people’s freedom and liberties since people become incapable of even defending themselves in their property.

Gun control robs people of the right for safety and self-defence. Imposing strict gun regulations will inevitably make millions of people incapable of defending themselves if something threatens their and their close ones’ lives. According to the data represented by the National Rifle Association, the number of cases of gun usage solely for self-defence purposes equals 2.5 million times annually. People use guns to protect their families and property, but, apparently, the states find the self-defence motive weak enough. If they impose strict gun control, it means that these 2.5 million people may literally sacrifice their lives and die just because they couldn’t hold a gun legally.

The truth is, the Police are physically incapable of protecting all the people who need protection, so these people are bound to defend themselves on their own. But how to protect yourself  if you cannot even possess a gun? So far, using a weapon for self-defence has proved to be the most effective way . Therefore, depriving people of the right for self-defence or for saving other people in trouble is inhumane and unjustified.

Overall, gun control has lately become a hot topic that has both its advocates and opponents. So far, the evidence against gun control is very reasonable and convincing. Gun control robs the citizens of their exceptional right – the right to protect themselves and those in danger. Besides, gun control contradicts the second amendment, which guarantees the right to possess a gun for adult US citizens. Finally, it is unlikely to reduce the crime rate as the science hasn’t yet found any valid proof for that.

Write a Gun Control Essay with HandmadeWriting

Composing a brilliant essay about gun control is somewhat challenging due to the peculiarity of this topic. But this is not something above your capacity. Keeping all the tips in mind as well as following a precise gun control essay structure will significantly facilitate the writing process. And if you need help with writing or editing – HandmadeWriting will have you covered! At any time of day and night, essay writers at HandmadeWriting work hard to deliver top-quality papers and support students from all over the world. So if you’re struggling with your essay, feel free to get in touch with us. 

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Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Gun Control

Read Excellent Examples of Persuasive Essay About Gun Control

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Are you looking for inspiration for your persuasive essay about gun control? You are at the right place!

Gun control is a controversial but common topic for students. But with so many arguments on both sides, students often find it challenging.

However, reading some sample essays can be a good start! 

This blog provides several example essays on the topic of gun control that you can read for inspiration. Moreover, you'll get tips to help you craft your own persuasive essay about the topic.

So let’s get started!

• 1. Persuasive Essay Examples on Gun Control 
• 2. Persuasive Essay Against Gun Control
• 3. Persuasive Essay on Pro-Gun Control
• 4. Argumentative Essay About Gun Control
• 5. Steps to Write a Persuasive Essay
• 6. Persuasive Essay Topics about Gun Control

Persuasive Essay Examples on Gun Control 

Start with these general persuasive essay samples on gun control. They will help you understand what makes a good gun control essay.

Check out these examples:

Persuasive Essay about Gun Control

Persuasive Essay Examples Gun Control

Want persuasive examples on other topics? Check out our persuasive essay examples blog to find samples on a variety of topics.

Persuasive Essay Against Gun Control

Check out these few examples of anti-gun control essays. These will help you understand the arguments of those who are against gun control.

Why Gun Control is Bad

Argumentative Essay Against Gun Control

Check out this short video below on the pros and cons of gun control to find good arguments for both sides.

Persuasive Essay on Pro-Gun Control

Some people believe that stricter gun control laws should be a priority to prevent gun violence. Here are some examples that will introduce you to their arguments in detail.

Why We Need Gun Control Essay

The Pros of Gun Control Essay

Free Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

Argumentative Essay About Gun Control

An argumentative essay about gun control is a paper that looks at both sides of the debate on this important issue. The goal is to make sure that you can support your position with facts, figures, and logical arguments.

Read these argumentative essay examples about gun control to see how it's done!

Steps to Write a Persuasive Essay

Now that you have read some good examples of persuasive essays about gun control, it's time for you to start writing your own paper.

But how exactly do you write a good essay by yourself? Here are some steps you should follow:

Step 1- Research the Topic

Before you start writing your essay, it’s important to do some research on gun control.

Read up on the different arguments and viewpoints on the issue to get a better understanding of what you are discussing. Gather as many facts and evidence as you need.

Make sure to take notes, so you can cite anything you use later.

Step 2- Make an Outline

Having a persuasive essay outline will help you stay organized and on track.

Start by making an outline of the main points you want to discuss in your essay. Then, break it down into subsections with specific facts and arguments.

In short, make sure to create a clear structure for your essay.

Step 3- Take a Stance

After doing your research, decide which side of the debate you agree with. Choose one side of the debate. Decide if you're going to argue for or against gun control. Make sure to choose an opinion that you can defend with logical arguments. Moreover, stay consistent throughout your paper about your stance.

Step 4- Support Your Arguments

When making your arguments, make sure to back them up with evidence. Use data, statistics, and quotes from experts to strengthen your points. In addition, you should use rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos to make your essay more effective.

Step 5- Address the Opposition  

Make sure to address any counterarguments that you come across while researching or writing your essay. This will show your readers that you have done your research and considered both sides of the argument.

Step  6- Proofread and Revise

Before submitting your paper, make sure to proofread for any mistakes or typos. Having a second pair of eyes look over your work can help catch any errors that you may have missed.

Take your time to revise and edit your essay. Make sure that each point is clearly laid out and supported with facts, figures, and logic. This is important to make sure that the essay is compelling and error-free!

Persuasive Essay Topics about Gun Control

Wondering which gun topic you should write about? Here are a few persuasive essay topics related to gun control that you can choose.

• The Impact of Stricter Gun Control Laws on Reducing Gun Violence
• The Role of Background Checks in Preventing Firearms Access for Criminals
• Mental Health and Gun Control: Addressing the Connection
• Gun Control vs. Second Amendment Rights: Finding a Balance
• The Necessity of Banning Assault Weapons for Public Safety
• Why Gun Control Won’t End School Shootings
• The Influence of Lobbying Groups like the NRA on Gun Control Policies
• The International Perspective: Comparing Gun Control Measures in Different Countries
• How Can Gun Control Help Suicide Prevention
• The Economics of Gun Control: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Stricter Regulations

Want persuasive topics on other subjects? Check out our list of 200+ engaging and interesting persuasive essay topics to get topic ideas.

To sum it up for you,

Gun control is an important issue that needs to be discussed in our society. The example essays in this blog have helped to show different arguments for and against gun control. In addition, you got some useful steps on how to write a persuasive essay about this topic.

Whether you are for or against gun control, make sure to conduct thorough research and use evidence when writing your paper.

So keep these steps in mind and start writing your own gun control essay today!

If you need further help with your essay on gun control, don't worry! 

Our essay help online can provide you with high-quality custom papers. We have experienced and professional writers who know what it takes to write a powerful persuasive piece!

So, hire our persuasive essay writing service now!

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Gun Violence Must Stop. Here's What We Can Do to Prevent More Deaths

Listen to "How Communities Can Prevent Gun Violence," a Prevention Institute podcast episode

Time and again, we are heartbroken by the news of another mass shooting. Part of our healing must be the conviction that we will do everything in our power to keep these tragedies from happening in a nation that continues to face a pandemic of gun violence. It's not only the high-profile mass shootings that we must work to prevent, but also the daily death-by-guns that claims more than 30,000 lives every year.

We know that these deaths are a predictable outcome of our country’s lack of political will to make a change and an underinvestment in prevention approaches that work. Through a public health approach that focuses on drawing from evidence and addressing the factors that increase or decrease the risk of gun violence, particularly in communities that are disproportionately impacted, we can save lives.

Each time a major tragedy occurs, the discourse tends to focus on addressing a specific venue. In the wake of the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, there is an understandable focus on school safety. We strongly support broad engagement of community members, including young people and other survivors of gun violence, policymakers, and others, in insisting that schools be safe. We must also insist on that same level of safety for our places of worship, shopping malls, movie theaters, concert venues, nightclubs, workplaces, neighborhoods, and homes.

We are listening to young people from all races, classes, and sexualities, in Florida, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and throughout the country, who are unifying to speak truth to power. We have renewed hope that, together, we can prevent gun violence— not just in the case of mass shootings but also in the case of domestic violence, suicide, community violence, and violence involving law enforcement. We first developed this list after the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. The public health approach has evolved since then, and we have now updated it, including more attention to addressing multiple forms of gun violence.

The recommendations below begin with attention to reducing immediate risks related to guns, broaden to address the underlying contributors to gun violence, and then address the prevention infrastructure necessary to ensure effectiveness. We also include recommendations related to new frontiers for research and practice, to ensure that we continue to learn, innovate, and increase our impact over time. The set of recommendations illustrate that one program or policy alone is not going to significantly reduce gun violence, but rather, through comprehensive strategies, we can achieve safety in our homes, schools, and communities. 

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

Gun safety: Reduce the imminent risk of lethality through sensible gun laws and a culture of safety.

1. Sensible gun laws: Reduce easy access to dangerous weapons.

2. Establish a culture of gun safety.

• Reduce firearm access to youth and individuals who are at risk of harming themselves or others.  
• Hold the gun industry accountable and ensure there is adequate oversight over the marketing and sales of guns and ammunition.  
• Engage responsible gun dealers and owners in solutions.  
• Insist on mandatory training and licensing for owners.  
• Require safe and secure gun storage.  

Underlying contributors to gun violence: systematically reduce risks and increase resilience in individuals, families, and communities. 

3. Public health solutions: Recognize gun violence as a critical and preventable public health problem.

4. Comprehensive solutions: Support community planning and implementation of comprehensive community safety plans that include prevention and intervention.

5. Trauma, connection, and services: Expand access to high quality, culturally competent, coordinated, social, emotional, and mental health supports and address the impact of trauma.

Prevention Infrastructure: ensure effectiveness and sustainability of efforts

6. Support gun violence research: Ensure that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others have the resources to study this issue and provide science-based guidance.

7. Health system: Establish a comprehensive health system in which violence prevention is a health system responsibility and imperative.

New Frontiers: continue to learn, innovate, and increase impact through research and practice

8. Community healing: Prevent community trauma.

9. Mental health and wellbeing: Invest in communities to promote resilience and mental health and wellbeing.

10. Support health y norms about masculinity: Explore the pathways between gun violence and harmful norms that have been about maintaining power and privilege.

11. Impulsive anger: Explore the linkages between anger and gun violence.

12. Economic development: Reduce concentrated disadvantage and invest in employment opportunities.

13. Law enforcement violence: Establish accountability for sworn officers and private security.

14. Technology: Advance gun safety and self-defense technology.

FULL RECOMMENDATIONS for Preventing Gun Violence

Gun safety: Part of a public health approach to gun violence is about preventing the imminent risk of lethality through sensible gun laws and a culture of safety.    

• Sensible gun laws: Reduce easy access to dangerous weapons by banning high capacity magazines and bump stocks, requiring universal background checks without loopholes, instituting waiting periods , and reinstituting the assault weapons ban immediately.  
• Establish a culture of gun safety: As the nation on earth with the most guns, we must make sure people are safe.  
• Reduce firearm access to youth and individuals who are at risk of harming themselves or others . This includes keeping guns out of the hands of those who have been violent toward their partners and families, and those with previous violent convictions, whether through expanding lethality assessment and  background checks  or supporting  domestic violence bills , and gun violence restraining orders .  
• Hold the gun industry accountable and ensure there is adequate oversight over the marketing and sales of guns and ammunition . Five percent of gun dealers sell 90% of guns used in crimes, and must be held accountable to a code of conduct . Further, states can pass laws requiring sellers to obtain state licenses, maintain records of sales, submit to inspections and fulfill other requirements. Unlike other industries, gun companies have special legal protections against liability leaving them immune from lawsuits. There is a need to repeal gun industry immunity laws in states that have them, and resist their enactment in states without current immunity laws. Increasingly, in the absence of legislative action, organizations are divesting from companies that manufacture firearms, and consumers are pressuring companies directly. More and more companies are setting new policies about what they are selling to the public and/or who they are selling products to.  
• Engage responsible gun dealers and owners in solutions. For example, some gun dealers and range owners are already being trained in suicide prevention .  
• Insist on mandatory training and licensing for owners . This training should include recurring education to renew permits, with a graduated licensing process at least as stringent as for driver's licenses.  
• Require safe and secure gun storage. For example, in King County, Washington, public health has teamed up with firearm storage device retailers. In addition to safe storage being tax exempt in Washington, through the LOK-IT-UP initiative , residents can learn about the importance of safe storage, purchase devices at discounted rates and learn how to practice safe storage in the home.  

Underlying contributors to gun violence: Risk and resilience. A public health approach to preventing gun violence expands solutions beyond gun access to reduce additional risk factors associated with gun violence and bolster resilience in individuals, families, and communities.  

• Public health solutions: Recognize gun violence as a critical and preventable public health problem. Gun violence is a leading cause of premature death in the country. Yet, unlike other preventable causes of death, we haven't mustered the political will to address it. Gun violence is most noticed when multiple people die at once, but it affects too many communities and families on a daily basis whether through suicide, domestic violence, community violence, or other forms. Data shows that risk for firearm violence varies substantially by age, race, gender, and geography, in patterns that are quite different for suicide and homicide. Through a public health approach, we have learned that violence is preventable across all of its forms. The public health approach studies data on various forms of violence and who is affected and identifies the biggest risk factors and what’s protective, and develops policy, practice, and program solutions in partnership with other sectors and community members. Many communities and groups have adopted a public health approach to preventing violence such as Prevention Institute’s UNITY City Network and Cities United , a growing network of over 100 mayors.  
• Comprehensive solutions: Support community planning and implementation of comprehensive community safety plans that include prevention and intervention. A growing research base demonstrates that it is possible to prevent shootings and killings through approaches such as hospital-based intervention programs , the Cure Violence model , and Advance Peace . A growing number of safety plans across the country include upstream strategies such as youth employment , neighborhood economic development, safe parks , restoring vacant land , and reducing alcohol outlet density . Following the implementation of Minneapolis’ Blueprint for Action to Prevent Youth Violence , which prioritized prevention and upstream strategies, the City experienced a 62% reduction in youth gunshot victims, a 34% reduction in youth victims of crime, and a 76% reduction in youth arrests with a gun from 2007-2015. Yet too many communities lack the resources to do what is needed. We must commit to helping communities identify and implement solutions.  
• Trauma, connection, and services: Expand access to high quality, culturally competent, coordinated, social, emotional, and mental health supports and a ddress the impact of trauma.  Too often gun violence is blamed on mental illness, when in fact in most cases people who carry out shootings do not have a diagnosable mental illness. However, throughout a community, members often recognize individuals who are disconnected and/or otherwise in need of additional supports and services. It is critical to reduce the stigma associated with mental health needs and support our children, friends, family members, and neighbors in seeking and obtaining appropriate supports. For this to work, communities need resources to assess and connect individuals at a high risk for harming themselves or others to well-coordinated social, emotional, and mental health supports and services, particularly in critical times of crisis and high need. Further, trauma can have damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health across the life course, especially during key developmental stages such as early childhood and adolescence, and can increase the risk for multiple forms of violence . We need to do more to recognize trauma, develop trauma-informed protocols, including for law enforcement, and support healing and treatment for individuals who have experienced or are experiencing trauma, including from exposure to violence in any form.  

Prevention Infrastructure: Beyond addressing the risk and underlying factors of gun violence, a public health approach also entails building a prevention infrastructure with mechanisms for scale, sustainability, and effectiveness. The UNITY RoadMap is a tool to support prevention infrastructure.  

• Support gun violence research: Ensure that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others have the resources to study this issue and provide science-based guidance. The CDC, the nation's public health agency, has long been restricted from conducting the kind of research that will support solutions to reduce gun violence. CDC can track, assess, and develop strategies to prevent gun violence, just as we do with influenza and tainted spinach. In the absence of sufficient tracking and evidence at the federal level, California launched the Firearm Violence Prevention Research Center at UC Davis, and other states are proposing to establish research centers as well.  
• Health system: Establish a comprehensive health system in which violence prevention is a health system responsibility and imperative. The Movement towards Violence as a Health Issue , which consists of over 400 individuals representing more than 100 organizations across the country dedicated to a health and community response to violence has proposed a framework for addressing and preventing violence in all of its forms. Moving away from the current, fragmented approach to violence that leans heavily on the justice system, this unifying framework encourages and supports extensive cross-sector collaboration. The framework includes 18 system elements such as public health departments, primary care, behavioral health care, law enforcement and the justice system, schools, and faith-based institutions, which together can move the nation toward safety, health, and equity.  

New Frontiers: A public health approach includes continuous learning and innovation to increase impact through research and practice. These emerging areas require further examination and are important additions to reducing the impact of gun violence in our society.  

• Community healing: Prevent community trauma. Community trauma can result from experiencing violence and it can also increase the likelihood of violence, contributing to a mutually reinforcing cycle. Let’s support healing and resilience through strategies that rebuild social relationships and networks, reclaim and improve public spaces, promote community healing, and foster economic stability and prosperity. Prevention Institute’s Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience Framework , provides an approach for addressing and preventing community trauma.  
• Mental health and wellbeing: Invest in communities to promote resilience and mental health and wellbeing. Mental illness is not at the root of our country’s high rate of gun violence, in fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. However, we know we can do more to foster mental health and wellbeing in the first place . Through our national initiative, Making Connections for Mental Health and Wellbeing Among Men and Boys , with communities across the US, we’re learning that there are pillars of wellbeing that promote wellbeing which is supportive of efforts to prevent multiple forms of violence, including belonging/connectedness, control of destiny, dignity, hope/aspiration, safety and trust. We are also seeing community members come together to change their community environments to promote mental health and wellbeing, including as a suicide prevention approach.  
• Support healthy norms about masculinity: Explore the pathways between gun violence and harmful norms that have been about maintaining power and privilege. The majority of men do not perpetrate gun violence; however, the majority of people who use guns against others and themselves are boys and men. For instance, the majority of the mass shooters over decades have been men. How do expectations about masculinity in different cultural contexts that promote, domination, control, and risk-taking connect to distress, bias and discrimination, and gun violence perpetration? How do gaps in expectations of power and privilege versus reality play into this? Why does our dominant culture permit a destructive desire for power over others? Answering questions like these can glean important insights and help us move toward a culture of equitable safety.   
• Impulsive anger: Explore the linkages between anger and gun violence. More research is needed to examine patterns of impulse control, empathy, problem solving, and anger management across shootings, as well as interactions of these functions with the harmful norms described in the previous recommendation. Through a public health approach, we want to understand who is at a greater risk for violence as a means to creating long-term solutions to stop the issue in the first place. Further analysis may provide answers regarding particular linkages and what to do when functions are compromised.  
• Economic development: Reduce concentrated disadvantage and invest in employment opportunities. As Rev. Gregory Boyle has long said of his work in East Los Angeles, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” Lack of employment opportunities increases the risk for gun violence, and on the other hand, economic opportunity protects against violence. Promoting equitable access to education programs, job training, and employment programs with mentorship for residents of neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage, especially young people can be effective in reducing gun violence. For example, a study of One Summer Chicago Plus , a jobs program designed to reduce violence and prepare youth from some of the city’s most violence neighborhoods for the labor market – saw a 43% drop in violent-crime arrests of participants. Further, neighborhood-based economic development strategies such as Business Improvement Districts that bring public and private partners together to invest in neighborhood services, activities, and improvements, have also been shown to reduce violence, including gun violence.    
• Law enforcement violence: Establish accountability for sworn officers and private security. Ensure that police and security industries examine disparities regarding who they protect versus who is most often harmed as a result of their actions. With this information, these sectors should develop effective approaches to reduce harm in those populations, including unarmed African American men and people with mental illnesses. Current approaches being explored include implicit-bias training , problem-oriented policing , and restorative justice . Moving forward, it’s important to determine and understand the most effective strategies.     
• Technology: Advance gun safety and self-defense technology. As the call for gun safety continues to increase, we must consider the role of new technologies . Just as cars continue to have new safety measures embedded in the technology, from fingerprint scanners to PIN codes and RFID chips, there are ongoing developments to increase the safety of guns and gun storage that require further analysis to assess effectiveness. In addition, technologies that are alternatives to guns are being developed to support self-protection to reduce the perceived need for a firearm for self-defense.

As our families, communities, and country reel from terrible daily tragedies, we must vow to change our culture and our policies and to stop this cycle of violence. We should be able to live in our homes, send our children to first grade, pray in our houses of worship, shop in our local malls, and walk through our streets and neighborhoods without being shot. Together we can take action in the memory of those who died and insist that this never happen again. Please take action and support changes like those outlined above to prevent gun violence.  

Learn more about preventing gun violence from other organizations and resources we’ve found helpful:

American Journal of Public Health

American Public Health Association

American Psychological Association

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Everytown for Gun Safety

Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Harvard T.H. School of Public Health

Hope and Heal Fund

Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence call to action

International Firearm Injury Prevention and Policy

Movement towards Violence as a Health Issue

Pew Research Center Americans’ views on guns and gun ownership

RAND Corporation

Smart Tech Challenges Foundation

Smarter Crime Control: A Guide to a Safer Future for Citizens, Communities, and Politicians.

Speak for Safety campaign for Gun Violence Restraining Order

States for Gun Safety Coalition

The Joyce Foundation

University of California, Davis – Violence Prevention Program

Violence Policy Center

If you have additional resources we should add to the list, email [email protected] .

Supported by a grant from the Langeloth Foundation

Related Publications

Prevention institute summary of recommendations to prevent gun violence, prevention institute full recommendations for preventing gun violence.

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Gun Violence in The United States

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Support journalism that shines a light on gun violence.

In guns we trust, how a scotus decision led to an unprecedented gun sales boom.

In episode 5 of “Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust,” host Garrett Graff speaks with the architect of the seismic District of Columbia v. Heller case about his search for the perfect plaintiff.

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For most of American history, gun ownership was understood to be a collective right tied to militia membership. But that changed in 2008, when The U.S. Supreme Court established for the first time that gun ownership is an individual right. In Episode 5 of “Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust,” host Garrett Graff speaks with the architect of the seismic District of Columbia v. Heller case about his search for the perfect plaintiff, and his surprising views on gun regulation today.

Graff and The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia examine the years after Heller passed, which saw an unprecedented gun sales boom. Red states began loosening barriers to gun access, and guns were in more places and in more hands than they’d ever been before. At the same time, the National Rifle Association trotted out its most successful marketing strategy: defensive gun use. But laws passed by NRA surrogates in Congress that prioritized gun rights and protected the gun industry also hamstrung law enforcement and made it harder to solve gun crimes.

One of those laws immunized gun makers and dealers from most lawsuits. Sandy Phillips, whose daughter, Jessi, died in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, came up against that legal barrier when she tried to sue the online ammunition dealer that supplied the gunman. Her suit was dismissed, and she was ordered to pay more than $200,000 in legal fees. The judgment bankrupted her. She and her husband fled to Mexico, where they’re able to go out in public without fear of a mass shooter. Before she left the U.S., Phillips started Survivors Empowered , a grim welcome committee for families who’ve experienced the inconceivable.

“Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust” is produced by Long Lead and Campside Media in collaboration with The Trace, and distributed by PRX. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Garrett Graff: A note for listeners: In this episode and across this season, there are repeated mentions of guns, gun violence, and their collective toll on our society and our psyche. This episode also contains explicit language. Please take care while you listen. 

Bob Levy: I think I may be the only attorney you’ve ever met, where a hundred percent of the cases I’ve ever litigated had been victories in the Supreme Court. Of course, I don’t tell anybody that the number of cases I’ve litigated is only one.

Garrett Graff: This is Robert Levy. That one case he litigated is perhaps the most significant turning point in the history of the American gun debate. It’s known as D.C. vs Heller. It started in 2002. Washington, D.C. had a longstanding ban on handguns.

Bob Levy: You couldn’t have a handgun at all. You could have a long gun, a rifle or shotgun, but you had to have it either disassembled or trigger-locked. And so unless you intended to club somebody over the head with it, it wasn’t gonna be useful as a means of self-defense.

Garrett Graff: Levy was invited to join a lawsuit against the district. Surprisingly, Levy doesn’t consider himself a gun rights proponent. He says he’s not particularly interested in guns.

Bob Levy: I was animated by the violation of the Constitution by Washington, D.C.

Garrett Graff: Levy agreed to work on the case because he believed in the “individual rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment. It’s a view that first emerged in a 1960 article by a legal scholar and was later popularized by Harlon Carter, Marion Hammer, and other NRA leaders. One basis for this view was evidence that as Englishmen, the framers of the Constitution had enjoyed the right to bear arms for protection through English common law. And proponents of the individual rights view claim that that right was also guaranteed in the American Bill of Rights — not just in the service of the militia, but also for self-defense. 

Bob Levy: That right to defend yourself reaches its peak within the confines of your own home.

Garrett Graff: This view has been refuted for decades. Some historians argue that firearms in that age weren’t even practical tools for self-defense. Think muskets or black powder rifles: Loading a single round took too long to be effective. For most of history, the Supreme Court had not weighed in on the matter, and several U.S. courts had previously upheld that the right to bear arms was indeed limited to militia service. In a 1991 interview on PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, Chief Justice Warren Burger claimed special interest groups like the NRA had deceived Americans.

[ Warren Burger: This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.]

Garrett Graff: But in 2001, Bush’s administration had affirmed the individual rights interpretation. In a two-page letter to the NRA’s chief lobbyist, Attorney General John Ashcroft said, “The text and the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms.” In his letter, Ashcroft cited Ivy-league liberal scholars who supported the view. Alan Dershowitz admittedly hated guns, but he agreed with his peers. And by then, pro-gun laws like right-to-carry had swept the nation. In Levy’s view, the time seemed ripe to settle the debate for good in the Supreme Court, which happened to be stacked with conservatives.

Bob Levy: So we had the federal government that seemed to be on our side. And we had some liberal commentators who were respected on the left that took the individual rights view.

Garrett Graff: The stakes were extremely high. If they lost, they were risking the rights of all Americans. But Levy and his team persisted. They just needed to find the perfect plaintiffs. They were looking for a diverse group of law-abiding D.C. residents, who strongly believed the Second Amendment gave them a right to bear arms for self-defense. And ideally, they had to be relatable – there needed to be a reasonable justification for why they needed a gun. In other words, a good reason to be afraid.

Bob Levy: There had to be a good story to tell because a lot of times public interest cases are litigated in the court of public opinion, in addition to the usual court. 

Garrett Graff: One plaintiff was a gay man who’d survived a homophobic assault. Another was a woman who’d been repeatedly harassed and threatened by local drug dealers. Their fears were understandable. But there was a problem. The plaintiffs had to have “legal standing.” This just means that they had to have been injured by the D.C. law being challenged. 

Bob Levy: It wasn’t enough to claim that you wanted a gun, you had to go buy one and be prosecuted and essentially risk being put in jail for having done that.

Garrett Graff: In 2007, the team brought the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. And in the end, five out of six of the original plaintiffs were dismissed. The court of appeals had determined that only one plaintiff had sufficient standing — a man named Dick Heller.

Bob Levy: So, Dick Heller actually applied for a gun and he was turned down. None of our other five plaintiffs did that.

Garrett Graff: Heller carried a gun every day for his job as a guard at a federal office building. But after work, he had to turn in his gun. D.C. law prevented him from taking it home. Because he had standing, Heller became the lead and only plaintiff in the case. For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court would weigh in on the Second Amendment. And after five long years building their case, they finally got a decision in March 2008. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the court.

[ Justice Antonin Scalia: We hold that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to have and use arms for self-defense in the home, and that the District’s handgun ban, as well as its requirement that firearms in the home be rendered inoperative, violates that right.]

Garrett Graff: The court was split 5-4. They won. Dick Heller was hailed a gun rights hero. However, the Court’s opinion included one significant stipulation, a point that’s often overlooked. 

[ Justice Antonin Scalia: The Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, and for whatever purpose.]

Garrett Graff: Surprisingly, Levy – a man who helped win possibly the greatest victory for gun rights in our history – believes in gun regulation.

Bob Levy: The Second Amendment establishes a presumption that you have the right to keep and bear arms. But it’s a rebuttable presumption in the same manner that the First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law” infringing on free speech. But we have all kinds of laws [that] infringe on free speech. You can’t falsely shout fire in a crowd of theater. And you can’t defame people. You can’t incite a riot. So there are lots of laws. And I count myself among those who support reasonable gun regulations.

Garrett Graff: In many ways, that word reasonable would be at the heart of the gun debate for years to come. The question becomes: How can you reasonably regulate firearm ownership without violating the Second Amendment? I’m Garrett Graff, and from Long Lead, PRX, and Campside Media, in collaboration with The Trace, this is season three of Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust . Episode 5: “A Good Guy with a Gun.”

Jennifer Mascia: My name is Jennifer Mascia. I am a gun violence reporter, and I work at The Trace, which is the nation’s only outlet for covering gun violence.

Garrett Graff: Jennifer Mascia has been my co-reporter on this season of Long Shadow, which is produced in collaboration with The Trace. Jen was the Trace’s first reporter. She’s now covered gun violence for more than a decade, investigated the gun industry, and had a front-row seat to both the particular horror of mass shootings and the specific tragedy of the day-to-day toll of firearms on American lives. 

Jennifer Mascia: One of the reasons I got involved with covering gun violence was because we wanted to know who gets shot in between the mass shootings, because those don’t make headlines. And even certain mass shootings don’t make headlines if the body count isn’t high enough and if the victims aren’t seen as innocent enough or if they come from a certain background.

Garrett Graff: In working on this show, Jen and I — and the show’s producers Emily and Aleah — spent hours discussing how the role of guns has changed in recent years. And Jen kept coming back to one important point: the origins and evolution of “defensive gun use” in America. Though the individual right to bear arms for self-defense was only affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2008, before that, 43 states already guaranteed the individual right to bear arms in their state constitutions. And the use of firearms for self-defense goes back over a century, to a time before there were local police departments, when you couldn’t just dial up 911. 

Jennifer Mascia: In the early 20th century, you look at women’s magazines and family magazines, and there are ads in there for defensive gun use. A 1913 ad I came across for Savage Arms had a woman defending herself with a 10-shot Savage Automatic. But it wasn’t the lion’s share of gun use. So it was seen as kind of, like, a splinter market. It wasn’t as primary as hunting, shooting, sport. It was Oh, guns have this also added benefit. If you’re a woman defenseless in her home with a child, you can use our product and you can defend yourself. So, until the mid-seventies, three-quarters of gun industry ads were for hunting and sports shooting, and less than five percent were marketed for protection. And by 2019, less than five percent of the ads promoted guns for hunting and sports shooting.

Garrett Graff: As we’ve discussed in previous episodes, the philosophy and justification of defensive gun use became the animating force of the gun rights debate in the 80s and 90s, alongside the proliferation of handguns, which are easy to handle and easy to conceal, and which were marketed specifically for self-defense. 

Jennifer Mascia: But the good guy with a gun concept that we all know and love today really took off after Florida passed Stand Your Ground in 2005. The NRA and the gun industry that was producing these weapons put the message out there that you’re not safe unless you have a gun, that there are criminals around every corner and the police are too far away to help you. And in some places that is true. But in a lot of places it’s not. And it helped reinforce the idea that guns equal safety.

Garrett Graff: Stand Your Ground aimed to amend state laws based on what was known as Castle Doctrine. Those laws, which trace back to medieval England, posited that a man’s home is his castle and that he has the right to defend it using deadly force if necessary. However, this only applied inside the home. If a person was confronted or attacked in the public square, they had a legal duty to retreat to safety. In other words: escape, run away, don’t fight back. NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer had a problem with that part about retreating. She felt American self-defense laws were antiquated and inadequate. Remember, she often referred to a story about how she’d once been accosted by a group of men in a car. She’d scared them off by drawing her pistol. But if she had fired her weapon in that moment, she could have been arrested and prosecuted.  

[ Marion Hammer : What I like to call “bleeding heart criminal coddlers” want you to give a criminal an even break so that when you’re attacked you’re supposed to turn around and run. Rather than standing your ground and protecting yourself and your family and your property.]

Garrett Graff: Hammer felt that she and any other citizen should have the right to not only draw their firearm if and when they feel their life is in danger, but also to use it.

[ Marion Hammer : We needed to be sure that when people protected themselves, their families and their property, that they weren’t gonna be prosecuted.]

Garrett Graff: Stand Your Ground laws extended the right to use deadly force in the home to public spaces and eliminated the duty to retreat. In order to exercise this right, you had to meet just one low bar under the law: You had to prove that you feared for your life. It was a pro-gun law that not even Harlon Carter could have conceived of. And just like with other pro-gun Florida laws, NRA leaders had hoped Stand Your Ground would set a precedent and take off in other states. Here’s Wayne LaPierre.

[ Wayne LaPierre: I think this bill is gonna sweep across the country because people want to be able to protect themselves. And they don’t want to be second-guessed by what action they take at the scene of a crime.]

Garrett Graff: Over time, Stand Your Ground would be implemented in 38 other states.  And it would transform public life in America. 

Jennifer Mascia: It’s as if once that law was passed, it was balls to the wall on the concept of defensive gun use being the primary reason for gun ownership. That’s when NRA executives first trotted out that phrase in interviews: “good guy with a gun.” The NRA president in 2005 was talking about it. Wayne LaPierre started focus-grouping it in public interviews in 2007, and then in 2012 it reached its apex.

[ Wayne LaPierre: The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.]

Jennifer Mascia: No matter what, they will always hew to this argument because it is the most successful argument for selling guns in America. 

Garrett Graff: You can see this shift reflected in gun sales. After the so-called Barack Boom, gun production peaks and continues to surge. For a product designed to kill, the most effective way to increase demand is fear. 

Jennifer Mascia: We used to produce and import about 7 million guns for the domestic market a year on average. And now it’s north of 15 million on average.  

Garrett Graff: More than half of firearms produced today are handguns.

Jennifer Mascia: For most of American history, rifles and shotguns regularly outsold revolvers and pistols. That changed the first time in 2008 when Barack Obama won the presidency. That’s the first year handguns overtook long guns in our history.

Garrett Graff: In many ways, this is the moment when America finally recognizes how ubiquitous guns have become in modern life. For decades, the gun rights movement had been advancing, but not many people had noticed the sea change taking place in state houses across the country. And then, in the wake of Barack Obama’s election, guns were in more places, in more hands than they’d ever been before. Thanks to the Supreme Court, pro-gun state legislators and federal lawmakers, there were fewer rules — and there were a lot more guns. Firearms were no longer just for hunting nor a symbol of rural traditions, and they weren’t just in the hands of criminals and gangs. Guns were everywhere. It was the culmination of decades of political influence by the gun industry and the NRA. 

Jennifer Mascia: If you think about the type of market penetration that cigarettes enjoyed, you know, at one point we were smoking on planes. That kind of thing is unimaginable today. There were high schools where there were smoking sections. The NRA, I feel like their goal was to get guns to that point of market penetration, where it’s no big deal. You know, you drive to school, you have a gun in the glove. And you come back out and you drive home. And it’s, it’s just no big deal to have guns everywhere.

[ Wayne LaPierre: All of you in this room this morning, instinctively know if I don’t want to be thirsty, I drink water. If I don’t want to be hungry, I eat food. And if I don’t want my family attacked or murdered, I own a gun.]

Garrett Graff: It’s legal in all 50 states to carry a concealed weapon and 13 million Americans are licensed to do so. Jen recently co-reported a story for The Trace about the increasing prevalence of guns in public spaces. Nothing illustrates that rise more than this: She found that in 2005, TSA officers had intercepted 660 guns from carry-on bags at security screenings across the nation’s airports. But in 2023, they seized more than 6,500 guns and nine out of 10 of them were loaded. Most of the travelers the TSA stopped had simply forgotten that they were carrying their gun at airport security, where most of the time we still take off our shoes before walking through the metal detectors. But while most American gun owners today say that they own guns primarily for protection and self-defense, it’s hard to tell how often people actually use guns to defend themselves. Police departments don’t track it, and while the FBI does tally  “justifiable homicides,” those records don’t include injuries. The gun industry often points to a dubious study that says Americans use guns defensively approximately two and a half million times a year. But few outside the gun industry believe it’s anywhere close to that prevalent. It’s almost surely a fraction of that number, probably a tiny fraction. Jen says that figure appears to be significantly inflated when you look at the data.

Jennifer Mascia: There aren’t 2.5 million instances of criminal gun violence every year. There were about 45,000 shootings last year where someone was injured or killed. So the idea that people are using guns in self defense more than they’re using them criminally doesn’t add up. 

Garrett Graff: The National Crime Victimization Survey found 70,000 instances of defensive gun uses a year — that’s instances where someone believes they used a gun to protect themselves and deter crime. The biannual federal survey is conducted through phone calls to people who have been victims of a crime. But there are issues with that data too.

Jennifer Mascia: People tend to overstate their role in self-defense encounters. It’s a phenomenon that’s called social desirability bias, where people exaggerate something that they were involved in that’s commendable or heroic, like fending off an attacker. I mean, that’s like the most admirable thing you can do, right? Protect your family, protect your friends, protect your loved ones. But the truth is, a lot of times, what they think of as defensive gun use is assault. You know, diffusing an argument by flashing a gun at a friend is not heading off a crime.

Garrett Graff: We’re all too familiar these days with horrifying, tragic stories of people being shot for knocking on a stranger’s door, pulling into the wrong driveway, going for a run in the wrong neighborhood, or mistakenly trying to get into the wrong car in a parking lot. Often the victims in those incidents are people of color, innocent civilians shot by someone claiming they were in fear for their life. Incidents from one perspective that might be considered self-defense but are actually deadly cases of overreaction — assault, manslaughter, or worse. Florida’s Stand Your Ground law became the subject of national controversy on a February night in 2012. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black boy, was shot on his way home from buying Skittles at a convenience store. Martin had been followed by George Zimmerman, a volunteer for the local neighborhood watch who thought the teen looked suspicious and called 911.

[ George Zimmerman: Yeah, now he’s coming towards me.]

[ Dispatcher: Okay.]

[ George Zimmerman: He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male.]

Garrett Graff: The dispatcher told Zimmerman not to pursue Martin. He did so anyway.

[ George Zimmerman: Shit, he’s running.]

[ Dispatcher : He’s running? Which way is he running?]

[ George Zimmerman : Down towards the, uh, other entrance of the neighborhood.]

[ Dispatcher : Okay. Which entrance is that that he’s heading towards?]

[ George Zimmerman : The back entrance. Fucking punks. These assholes, they always get away.]

Garrett Graff: Zimmerman claimed self-defense. He was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013. The case captured the nation’s attention and helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. The shooting even shook President Barack Obama. 

[ President Barack Obama: When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is: Trayvon Martin could have been me.]

Garrett Graff: And amid that unrest, this is when Stand Your Ground laws began to spread across the country. It’s the self-perpetuating cycle of expanding gun rights that we’ve seen so many times already: The answer to the danger of more guns is even more guns. While guns make many Americans feel safer, the little research we have shows that in reality, the opposite is true. And there’s an important reason we don’t have good research. In the mid-1990s, the CDC conducted a study which found that having a gun in the home meant you were 200 percent more likely to accidentally shoot a family member, and the risk of suicide was five times greater. Research like that is data the NRA and the gun industry doesn’t want Americans to know. And as gun rights have expanded across the country, they’ve fought to hide a true accounting of the toll of gun violence. In the wake of that 1996 study, 10 lawmakers wrote a letter accusing the CDC of political advocacy and “anti-gun bias.” Those gun-friendly lawmakers did more than just write an angry letter. Arkansas Congressman Jay Dickey attached a provision to that year’s appropriations bill that became known as the Dickey Amendment. It barred the use of federal funding from advocating for, or promoting, gun control.

Jennifer Mascia: Congress took $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget, which was the exact amount the CDC had invested the previous year in firearm injury research. And it was a clear message: Use public funds to study gun violence and you’ll lose your whole budget. So the only studies going on for decades were privately funded.

Garrett Graff: As a result, federally funded research on gun violence stalled for more than two decades until 2019, when Congress finally clarified that the law does not prohibit funding to study gun violence. Jay Dickey ultimately came to regret his namesake amendment. In 2015, Dickey told NPR he hadn’t intended for his legislation to bring public research to a halt.

[ Representative Jay Dickey : The thing that really brought this to my mind was watching as the little barricades were set up between the interstate to stop head-on collisions. The highway industry spent money in their scientific research to figure out what could be done, assuming that they were going to allow cars to continue to be on our highways. Enormous reduction of head-on collisions has been caused just by that little two-and-a-half, three-foot fence. We could do the same in the gun industry.]

Jennifer Mascia: You know, it’s unfortunate that he didn’t come to this conclusion sooner. We lost decades. But now there’s actually been an explosion in gun violence research.

Garrett Graff: Today, according to the CDC, more people are killed by guns than in car accidents each year — 133 Americans every day. It’s a sobering number. Almost 50,000 dead every year. Almost as many Americans dead from guns every year as were killed in the decade of combat in Vietnam. More than half of those deaths are suicides. The rest — homicides and accidental shootings. And gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children.  

Jennifer Mascia: Guns have reshaped American society. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t think twice about going to a parade. We didn’t worry when we were going to the mall or sitting in a movie theater. Things have really changed. We’re teaching our kids active shooter drills in kindergarten. And the truth is that bullets don’t have names on them. And any one of us could be cut down by a bullet. It is an equal opportunity threat in America.

Garrett Graff: More after the break.

Garrett Graff: By the late 2000s, it was becoming clear that background checks and waiting periods alone weren’t enough to stem the national tide of gun violence. Most guns used in crimes started off being purchased legally, and as America reckoned with a rising number of mass shootings, all too many of those firearms had been purchased by the perpetrator legally. In 2007, a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. It was the nation’s deadliest shooting since Columbine. In the years ahead, an ever-growing list of communities would become part of the national shorthand of tragic massacres, forever linked in our collective memory to unimaginable horrors, reminders that these shootings could happen anywhere, anytime. In 2009, a gunman killed 13 people at a civic association in Binghamton, New York. He bought two guns legally at a store. Later that year, a gunman killed 13 people inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood, Texas. He bought the gun legally at a store. In 2011, a gunman killed six people at a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, and injured Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. He bought the gun legally at a store. And on July 20th, 2012, a gunman dressed in tactical gear entered a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, with four guns he purchased legally, including an AR-15. He carried 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for a semiautomatic rifle, and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun, all of which he bought online. Sandy Phillips’ daughter, Jessi Redfield Ghawi, was in the audience that night. She had gone to see the midnight premiere of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.  

Sandy Phillips: I used to say she was like a Labrador puppy. She came into the room and it was just, I’m here, you know. She was just big and fun and full of that positive energy.

Garrett Graff: Jessi was a 24-year-old aspiring sports journalist. She especially loved covering hockey.

[ Jessi Ghawi: What about players coming in and out throughout the entire season? You get guys that come down from the NHL, and you have guys that are coming in from the Coyotes. How does that change the dynamic of the team?]

[ Interviewee: Uh, a little bit. I mean, it’s uh, this is a crazy business.]

Sandy Phillips: Fell in love with it. It was like, you know, almost an addiction with her. She just loved everything about it. She loved the players. She loved researching them. When she was working in the hockey world, she was just happier than I’ve ever seen her.

[ Interviewee: You’re nailin’ it. I’m tellin’ you what. So far, so good.]

[ Jessi Ghawi: I know, I’m doing such a great job. This is full fail. OK, y’all have struggled with the Texas Stars. What’s that been about?]

[ Interviewee: Uh, you know, we were on a pretty high streak.]

Garrett Graff: Jessi had recently had an eerie, traumatic experience. She was visiting her boyfriend in Toronto, Canada. They’d gone shopping at Eaton Mall and were planning to have lunch there. She’d been craving sushi. But then, all of a sudden, Jessi was overcome by a strange feeling. Something told her to get out, immediately. She and her boyfriend left the mall and, moments later, she learned there was an active shooter inside the food court. She stood outside the mall stunned as she watched a man who’d been shot wheeled into an ambulance. Distraught and frozen with fear, Jessi had called her mom, Sandy.  

Sandy Phillips: And I told her, I said, “Sweetheart, you have seen the worst of mankind today, and you’ll never see it again.” 

Garrett Graff: Jessi wrote about that experience in a blog post. She wrote that she was grateful to be alive. Here’s Jen Mascia reading Jessi’s words.

Jennifer Mascia: I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.

Sandy Phillips: Six weeks later we were burying her.

Garrett Graff: Jessi was among 12 people killed in the Aurora shooting. Seventy others were injured.

Sandy Phillips: I felt really guilty about lying to her. But at the time I was very naive to how often this happens in the world, but certainly in the United States. And I’ve often wondered, as the shots were being fired, if she thought about what I told her and if she had time to say, Well, here it is happening again.

[ Police officer 1: … white car in the rear of the lot. Is that a suspect?]

[ Police officer 2: Yes. We’ve got rifles, gas masks.]

[ Police officer 1: OK. Hold that position. Hold your suspect.]

Garrett Graff: The massacre in Aurora was unusual in that the shooter, a 24-year-old man, was arrested alive. He lived to face a trial and though he admitted to the killings, he pled guilty by reason of insanity. He was found guilty of 165 charges, and he received 12 life sentences and more than 3,000 years in prison. Within months of the shooting, Sandy began to receive calls inviting her to visit other communities devastated by gun violence. She and her husband have traveled the country in an RV for years meeting with other grieving families, offering something few first responders can truly give — understanding. 

Sandy Phillips: I always believe that if you’re truthful with a survivor, that gives them hope. So, in Parkland we met one family early-early on, and I went over to their, we went over to their house. And the first thing I said to her is: “I know exactly what you’re feeling right now.” And I said, “You woke up this morning, saying, Why wasn’t it me? And Why am I still alive and my son’s dead? And she just looked at me with this, you know, like, That’s exactly what I was thinking. You know, we talk about Uvalde Strong, Las Vegas Strong, Aurora Strong, you know, we have all these strong, strong, strong, which I absolutely hate because what it says to those who are directly affected is Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and get on with your life. You’re strong. No, you’re broken. And in some cases you’re so broken, you don’t even realize you’re broken for several years. And then you hit that wall and you crumble.

Garrett Graff: Sandy and her husband created what they call the Survivor[s] Toolkit, to help other families grappling with the daunting practicalities and decisions that inevitably follow when you lose a loved one in a mass shooting: like what to do when the media is knocking on your door, or how to work with politicians, or what risks to weigh when considering a lawsuit.

Sandy Phillips: We just feel it’s really important to people that are new to know that they’ve got some kind of guidance, because we didn’t have any.

Garrett Graff: Sandy and her family had once considered sharing autopsy photos with lawmakers, hoping that might be enough to spur change. But they ultimately decided against it. It would be too much to bear and too great a risk; the photos could end up in the wrong hands. These are the choices it’s impossible to prepare for. But there’s something else that’s particularly challenging to prepare families for — the uniquely American phenomenon of influencer-driven conspiracy theories. Sandy remembers warning a father who’d lost his son in the Parkland shooting. He was initially hesitant to speak with anyone.

Sandy Phillips: And I said, um, we don’t want to invade your privacy and your personal space at this time. But let me tell you that right now there are Facebook pages saying that this shooting didn’t happen, that your son is a paid actor, that you are paid actors, and, you know, that you work for the government or whatever … deep state, um, that whoever is writing it wants to say. And he went, “That’s not a real thing, is it?” And I said, “Oh, yeah, unfortunately it is.”

[ Host: Earlier today on the Alex Jones Show, Alex broke down how this incident and this shooting, you know, it looks like a false flag attack. And, you know, there’s no doubt that this has psyop written all over it.]

[ Alex Jones: One-hundred percent chance that the mass murder committed in the suburb of Denver, Colorado, right next to Littleton and Columbine, was a false flag mind control event.]

[ News clip: Right-wing conspiracy theories going viral about David Hogg, a 17-year-old Parkland shooting survivor. The unsubstantiated claims say he’s a crisis actor, a trained actor who takes advantage of tragedies for political gain.]

Sandy Phillips: The initial trauma is one thing, but then you go through all the harassment that you get if you speak out.

Garrett Graff: Sandy and her husband sued the gun dealer Lucky Gunner that sold ammunition to the man who killed their daughter. That online sale had not even require a driver’s license. They didn’t sue for money but instead asked for Lucky Gunner to change their business practices and better vet their customers.

Sandy Phillips: Because if they’re doing this every day, who else are they doing and setting up for this kind of heartache?

Garrett Graff: But the lawsuit was dismissed in 2015 because of that Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act — PLCAA. President Bush, remember, had signed PLCAA into law in 2005. It gave the gun industry broad immunity from civil liability lawsuits and helped create the business environment that fueled the rapid increase in gun production and sales in the 2000s. And in Sandy’s case, PLCAA did exactly what it was meant to do — it allowed the gun industry to draw a line between its products and what people did with them. However a customer might use a gun or ammunition wasn’t their legal problem. Lucky Gunner didn’t have to change a thing. In fact, it would go on to sell ammunition to another mass shooter, in 2018 — a 17-year-old, who killed 10 people and injured 13 others at Santa Fe High School in New Mexico. Because of a Colorado immunity law, Sandy and her husband were actually ordered to pay the gun dealer’s legal fees – more than $200,000. They had to sell their home and file for bankruptcy. Now, they live in Mexico.

Sandy Phillips: It took everything from us. Um, and that’s part of the reason why we’re living in Mexico. And people say, Oh, aren’t you worried in Mexico? It’s so dangerous. And it’s like, Do you remember where my daughter was killed? She was in the theater, doing absolutely nothing except watching a movie. So, no, it’s not more dangerous down here. And quite frankly, I have to say it’s been a blessing. We are away from the fear that we had living in America. I don’t sit with my back looking out into a restaurant anymore. We eat outside without fear. It’s just a whole different, the quality of life is just so much better for us here.

Garrett Graff: And in these quiet moments, free from fear, Sandy’s often reminded of Jessi. 

Sandy Phillips: It’s been 4,200 days today since she’s been gone. That’s a lot of days to be without my baby. I am spiritual; I’m not terribly religious. Although I was raised in the church, I’m just not a religious person. But after Jessi was killed, I was like, Where is she? Is there a heaven? What has happened to my baby? And one of her very good friends is a scientist, and he said, “You know, all we are is energy and we’re bottled in this body of ours. And energy has no beginning and it has no end. It’s eternal. It morphs. It becomes something else. But it’s there.” And that helped me more than any sermon, any preacher. That helped me more than anything. And it changed how I mourn my daughter. I talk to Jessi every day. I really do. I feel her around me all the time — and it helps.

Garrett Graff: Next time on Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust.

Alain Stephens: It’s like a nightmare, where it’s like, you’re sitting inside your house, right, and you’re at the window, and you see everyone outside arguing, and there’s a boulder that’s going to kill them all. And you’re screaming at the window, right.

Jennifer Mascia: When we kick the can down the road, it ends up being the problem of schools, and school resource officers, and people who are not trained to deal with this.

Congressman : It fails pretty badly, and what I realized was that, it wasn’t that we were losing the argument, or that our argument wasn’t good enough. It just that we lacked political power.

Alain Stephens: Americans are having this visceral conversation and we’re having it in the dark. We have this hard-to-get information and no one’s asking for it, and in the meantime, everyone’s dying.

Congressman: I am 100 percent confident that we are passing universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons in the next five to 10 years. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.

Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust is produced by Long Lead and Campside Media in collaboration with The Trace, and distributed by PRX.

This series is hosted and reported by me, Garrett Graff. It was created by myself and executive producer John Patrick Pullen, of Long Lead.

Jennifer Mascia of The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers guns in America, is my co-reporter and a contributing producer for this season.

The show is written by Emily Martinez. Aleah Papes is the associate producer and a contributing writer as well. Matthew Shaer and Emily Martinez also served as executive producers on this season.

Our theme song was composed by Netta Hadari. Sound design by Claire Mullen. Additional engineering by Yi-Wen Lai-Tremewan. Music by Blue Dot Sessions and APM. This series was recorded by Joe Egan at Egan Media Productions.

Fact-checking by Emily Barone and Sarah Baum. Audience development by Heather Muse. Cover art by Long Lead’s creative director, Sarah Rogers. Special thanks to Lindsey Kilbride, Ashleyanne Krigbaum, and Jennifer Bassett who consulted on the podcast.

Stay up to date on this podcast and learn more about Long Lead’s award-winning journalism by subscribing to our newsletter, at LongLead.com.

If you like Long Shadow, spread the word, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps others find the show.

Thanks for listening.

This episode is largely based on the reporting of Jennifer Mascia, for the Trace. You can find more of her work at thetrace.org. You can sign up for The Trace’s newsletter there as well.

The only newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence.

Your tax-deductible donation to The Trace will directly support nonprofit journalism on gun violence and its effects on our communities.

Introducing “In Guns We Trust”: A Podcast About How the U.S. Became So Divided Over Guns

In the coming season of "Long Shadow," Trace staffers help explain how guns became a cultural signifier as our crisis of violence spiraled.

The Sandy Hook Generation Reinvigorates the Gun Safety Movement

The rise of the ar-15, how the nra forged its scorched-earth strategy.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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Gun Violence Widely Viewed as a Major – and Growing – National Problem

Growing shares of Americans view both gun violence and violent crime as very big national problems. 49% of U.S. adults say gun ownership increases safety by allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves; an identical share says it reduces safety by giving too many people access to firearms and increasing misuse.

About 1 in 4 U.S. teachers say their school went into a gun-related lockdown in the last school year

59% of public K-12 teachers say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school.

For Most U.S. Gun Owners, Protection Is the Main Reason They Own a Gun

Gun owners in the United States continue to cite protection far more than other factors, including hunting and sport shooting, as a major reason they own a gun. About half of Americans who don’t own a gun say they could never see themselves owning one (52%) while nearly as many could imagine themselves as gun owners in the future (47%).

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Striking findings from 2023

Here’s a look back at 2023 through some of our most striking research findings.

Key facts about Americans and guns

Six-in-ten U.S. adults say gun violence is a very big problem in the country today, up 9 percentage points from spring 2022.

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens rose 50% in two years

In 2021, there were 2,590 gun deaths among U.S. children and teens under the age of 18, up from 1,732 in 2019.

About a third of K-12 parents are very or extremely worried a shooting could happen at their children’s school

Mothers are more likely than fathers to be extremely or very worried about a school shooting, and concerns also vary by race and ethnicity.

Republicans in Congress are about three times as likely as Democrats to indicate that they own a gun

At least 110 representatives and senators in the current 117th Congress have publicly stated or otherwise confirmed that they own a gun.

Abortion Rises in Importance as a Voting Issue, Driven by Democrats

While the economy remains the dominant issue in this fall’s midterm elections, the issue of abortion has increased markedly in importance. More voters continue to view their midterm vote as an expression of opposition to Joe Biden than support for him. But across both parties, more voters now say Biden is not much of a factor in their vote.

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Enjoy tips on academic writing and free sample research papers, essays, speeches, book reviews and much more than that. All tips are prepared by the seasoned academic writers, and you can always count on their reliability and practical efficiency. Our well-thought-out sample papers can be used as illustrative examples for your own academic writing. No matter which type of academic assistance you need right now, you can always rely on our professionalism and experience.

Great Hook for Gun Control Essay

Gun control is a powerful and controversial issue for analysis, which is one reason that the topic is a frequent subject for essays at the college and university levels. When a college student is asked to complete an informative and persuasive essay about gun control, the student should bear in mind that he or she can use the Internet to his or her advantage. With so many controversies over gun control, there is always something interesting and inventive to write about that can connect your paper to the most current controversies over the issue. You can read these simple academic guidelines to learn a few tips and tricks that will help you to prepare your essay successfully.

Explain the Meaning of Gun Control

It is important to provide the reader with the necessary information to understand the meaning of gun control. Gun control is the practice based on the limitation of the sale and possession of firearms. You can say that many countries practice a policy of gun control for different purposes. Mention that the U.S. differs from the rest of the world because many more people are permitted to purchase and possess firearms for self-protection. It can be useful to compare the United States to countries like Britain or Australia where there are far fewer gun crimes and less of a gun-centric culture.

Attract the Reader’s Attention with the Help of Specific Facts

Naturally, you ought to prepare an interesting essay. You can capture the reader’s attention right from the start with the aid of statistics and the correct facts about the danger of rifles, revolvers, and pistols. It is smart to open your paper by writing about particular cases of violence and terrorism in gun free zones, at educational institutions or work. Specific examples capture the reader’s attention, and telling stories about real people helps to form an emotional connection to the audience that interests them in wanting to hear more about your topic. In some cases, you might say that people could have saved their lives if they had the opportunity to possess a weapon. On the other hand, you can write about a case where a psychologically ill person kills dozens of people and the courts find that the killer is not responsible for his or her actions. You can emphasize the importance and necessity of gun control for the wellbeing of the surrounding community.

Develop a Strong and Effective Thesis Statement

After you have developed your attention-getting device, you will need to present a thesis statement in which you explain what the essay will demonstrate or prove and indicate the main lines of evidence that you will be using to support and prove your main idea.

Offer a Few Arguments Supporting the Policy

You should observe the pros and cons of gun control. At first, you can focus on the advantages of this system. Say that sometimes it is smart to limit the sale and possession of firearms. Many mentally ill people manage to purchase a rifle and cause harm to their neighbors and random citizens. They cannot control their emotions and actions; therefore, they can wound or even murder an innocent person with little to stop them, especially in an era where there is a reduced mental health support system to deal with such people before they act violently. Secondly, the possession of firearms requires responsibility and maturity. Some people do not know how to use their pistols, revolvers and submachine guns, and they can cause harm to someone’s health by mistake. Naturally, when one buys a gun, one should know how to use it. Most people agree that a person needs to possess a license which confirms that he has finished the specialized courses devoted to the owners of firearms, and it can be reasonable therefore to argue that licensing requirements should be tightened, much the way driver’s licenses are more restrictive than they were 50 years ago.

Write a Few Arguments Against Gun Control

Although the majority of countries embrace a policy of gun control, you can say that you prefer to possess firearms, because they are safe when used correctly and can save a person’s life in the case of an emergency. Provide the reader with definite information about the rates of violent crimes in various countries which support gun control and compare them to the United States. In a few cases, you may be able to argue that rates of violent crimes are lower in the U.S. than they might otherwise be because people can use their rifles for self-protection. If a criminal knows that every citizen possesses a revolver or rifle and he or she may not risk his or her own life for easy money.

Conclude Your Essay

You ought to summarize your essay professionally. Develop a strong conclusion that leaves the reader with a substantive parting thought they can think about after the paper ends. With such controversial issues, it is better to complete your gun control essay with the help of an open-ended conclusion that invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusion. Restate some of the main ideas of the paper and indicate whether you feel that the arguments for or against gun control are stronger.

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Threat assessment in k-12 schools can detect early warning signs of violence.

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Firearm injuries have become the leading cause of death among U.S. children and teens, according to ... [+] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Threats or actual incidents of school violence have become a standard element of K-12 students’ educational experience. I have written two recent articles addressing the impact of ongoing school violence on students and school staff and statistics regarding the increasing trends in school shootings . This final third article explores organizations established to help keep K-12 schools and communities safe.

An American Academy of Pediatrics article written by Clemson University researchers offers a clear and direct synopsis of school shootings in the United States and labels gun violence in America a public health crisis. In a brief video, lead author Luke J. Rapa, Ph.D., narrates a study synopsis and affirms there has been a significant increase in school shootings between 2017 and 2022. According to his team’s research, in those five academic years, 794 U.S. school shootings represented a significant increase in incidents over the prior 15 years. Firearm injuries, inflicted by oneself or by others, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , have become “the leading cause of death among children and teens ages 1-19.”

Organizations Seek To Keep K-12 Schools And Communities Safe

The CDC’s three-pronged approach to preventing firearm injuries shifts the focus “from individual responsibility to community solutions.” These organizations offer community resources and support.

As the academic year concludes, school leaders will spend time this summer reviewing safety data and preparing plans for the 2024-25 school year. Understanding measures in place and based on best practices is critical for school leaders and communities.

Valuable school violence data is collected and analyzed through a variety of organizations. The School Survey on Crime and Safety , managed by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics , collects data on crime and violence in U.S. public K-12 schools. The 2021-22 academic year report, released in January 2024, contains data on school violence incidents reported by a sampling of 4,800 public, public charter, and certain public magnet schools. The report also addresses existing school security measures, staffing and training, available mental health services, and parent and community involvement The data can help all Americans understand what is happening in our schools.

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The National Center for School Safety , based at the University of Michigan School of Public Health partners with community and safety leaders to develop and deliver a variety of free training seminars and resources. You may want to explore the NCSS series of podcasts related to firearm injuries and school violence.

School leaders and law enforcement partner for threat assessment to detect and analyze early warning ... [+] signs of school violence.

Threat Assessment—Looking To Prevent Danger At Its Source

School safety must be more than playing whack-a-mole in addressing violent events as they occur. School safety is more than surface-level prevention. It is eliminating the danger at its source.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, representing eight national law enforcement organizations, released the “Ten Essential Actions to Improve School Safety ” report. The report recommends measures to promote physical safety and emotional security through prevention and rapid response, including comprehensive school safety assessments, facility security upgrades, promoting a positive and healthy school climate, anonymous reporting systems, coordination with first responders, drills, and school-based law enforcement, among others. The full publication can be found here .

One crucial strategy recommended in the COPS report addresses threat assessment practices. Threat assessment, used to detect and analyze early warning signs of violence, is an important prevention component of school safety. A threat assessment overview provided by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services defines threat assessment as “a fact-based process relying primarily on an appraisal of behaviors to identify potentially dangerous or violent situations, and to address them in a professional and timely manner.”

As the first state to do so, Virginia’s General Assembly enacted legislation in 2013 mandating threat assessment teams for Virginia’s public schools. According to Everytown , which labels itself the largest gun violence prevention organization in America, as of January 2024, nine states now require K-12 threat assessment policies and procedures. This interactive map provides state-related stories and data where you can explore practices in your state and region.

In partnership with NCSS, the University of Virginia has developed a toolkit to help train school threat assessment teams.

School-Engaged Organizations

Numerous school-engaged organizations are available for people who want to learn more.

The National School Board Association’s Center for Safe Schools offers a compilation of resources addressing healthy whole child, crisis management, and infrastructure resources. The National Association of School Psychologists states school psychologists are “uniquely positioned to advocate for evidence-based initiatives” and offers communities a rich library of school safety and crisis resources . Similarly, the U.S. federal government’s SchoolSafety.gov site provides schools with resources and guidance to promote physically and emotionally safe learning environments.

Speaking from a place of profound loss and advocacy, the Safe and Sound Schools organization, founded by parents who lost children in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, is a nonprofit resource center that promotes a comprehensive, holistic approach to school safety. The organization’s Framework for Comprehensive School Safety Planning and Development addresses mental and behavioral health; health and wellness; safety and security; operations and emergency management; leadership, law, and policy; and culture, climate, and community. The organization is resolute in its mission to “ensure the safest possible learning environment for the youth of our nation.”

Deeply Human Consequences

Michele Gay, co-founder and executive director of Safe and Sound Schools, speaks about Sandy Hook ... [+] and school safety at the Reading/Berks School Nurses, Counselors and Psychologists Conference. Her daughter, Josephine, was killed at Sandy Hook. The event was held at the Reading Hospital's School of Health Sciences. Photo by Lauren A. Little 10/8/2018 (Photo By Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)

In all school safety considerations, there are deep human consequences. The threat is so real that organizations like UNICEF have released guidance advising How to Talk to Your Children About School Shootings . In recovery, survivors and their communities rally, write to each other , and mark anniversaries by locking hands to form a human chain to mark the anniversary of the Covenant School (Tennessee) tragedy .

This well-crafted argument by members of the Huguenot High School community in Richmond, Virginia, asks the public and the media to see beyond tragedy and statistics (such as their own school violence experience in 2023) and appreciate the many remarkable stories found in our students and schools. The strength of these young people is remarkable as they stand strong against trauma. The HHS community will forever be marked by violence, but these young people do not want to be defined by it.

It is important to understand the lifelong impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences , one of which is experiencing or witnessing violence in the community or home. Beyond potential physical injuries, exposure to violence may lead to memory, mental health, and well-being repercussions and have negative effects on educational outcomes and job potential. The consequences are felt throughout children’s lives, homes, schools, and communities.

There is also a significant financial price for such trauma, as the CDC notes “violence and injury cost the United States tens of billions of dollars each year in medical and lost productivity costs.”

School Safety Issues Must Be Discussed

Talk to state legislators, school leaders, and local law enforcement personnel about existing school ... [+] safety procedures in your schools.

School violence leaves a lasting impression on our children and educators. But we can work together to find community-specific solutions. These issues must be discussed. Families should know about school crisis prevention and mitigation plans.

Ask your state legislators and school leaders about existing safety and violence prevention strategies. Ask local law enforcement personnel, including school resource officers, about their roles in school safety. They are vital to the safety of students and staff and should be glad to talk about their training and plans.

You can start the conversation by reviewing the National PTA’s Safety website , addressing all aspects of school safety, and talking with your local leaders about the PTA’s 20 Questions Every Parent Should Ask .

When you are informed and engaged, you can help keep children and schools safe.

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The Tragic Case of Adam Lanza and its Aftermath

This essay about Adam Lanza examines the events leading up to and following the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. It discusses Lanza’s early life, marked by mental health issues and social isolation, and how these factors may have contributed to his violent actions. The essay also explores the broader implications of the tragedy, including debates over gun control, mental health care, and school safety. It highlights the need for stricter gun laws, better mental health services, and improved safety protocols in schools to prevent future tragedies. The essay serves as a call to action for addressing these critical issues comprehensively.

How it works

The narrative encapsulating Adam Lanza represents a profoundly sorrowful and disquieting chapter in the annals of American history. Adam Lanza, born on April 22, 1992, etched his name in infamy by orchestrating one of the most calamitous school shootings in the chronicles of the United States. On December 14, 2012, Lanza breached the sanctity of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, perpetrating the deaths of 26 individuals, among whom were 20 children and six staff members, before succumbing to self-inflicted demise. To fathom the genesis of this abominable deed, it becomes imperative to delve into Lanza’s background, mental health vicissitudes, and the broader societal reverberations emanating from his malevolent actions.

Adam Lanza’s formative years were fraught with formidable adversities. Diagnosed with sensory processing disorder in his nascent years, Lanza grappled with the tribulations of navigating commonplace sensory stimuli. Subsequently, he garnered an additional diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, a constituent of the autism spectrum portending challenges in social interactions and communicative competencies. Despite these diagnoses, Adam’s mother, Nancy Lanza, elected to homeschool him following her discernment of conventional scholastic environments as excessively distressing for her son. This choice engendered an increasingly reclusive milieu for Adam, characterized by scant social engagements beyond the confines of his domicile.

As Adam traversed the labyrinth of adolescence, the contours of his mental health maladies appeared to deepen. Anecdotal accounts posit manifestations of acute anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and ostensibly, schizophrenic proclivities. His seclusion burgeoned, relegating him to the sequestered recesses of his chamber, where he whiled away the hours engrossed in solitary pursuits such as video gaming and scrutinizing the annals of mass shootings. Nancy Lanza, estranged from Adam’s father, Peter Lanza, endeavored to navigate her son’s afflictions single-handedly, albeit grappling with the dearth of efficacious interventions. Observers within Adam’s social orbit discerned Nancy’s escalating disquietude vis-à-vis her progeny’s comportment, yet she persisted in harboring firearms within her domicile under the aegis of self-defense, oblivious to the latent perils this portended.

On the fateful morn of December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza meted out four fatal shots to his slumbering mother’s cranium employing a .22-caliber rifle. Subsequently, he traversed to Sandy Hook Elementary School, armed to the teeth with an assortment of munitions, including a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle and a duo of handguns. Breaching the school’s threshold through coercive means, he embarked upon his rampage, indiscriminately targeting students and faculty alike. The entire episode transpired within a span of scant minutes, yet its repercussions precipitated unremitting anguish and profound bereavement for the Newtown community and its vicinities.

The aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre precipitated vociferous national discourses concerning gun control paradigms, mental health care exigencies, and fortification of scholastic sanctuaries. In the wake of the calamity, vociferous clamors resounded for stringent legislative enactments concerning the vending of assault weaponry and high-capacity periodicals. Advocates proffered cogent contentions asserting the prophylactic efficacy of such measures in forestalling prospective calamities by erecting impediments to the procurement of lethal armaments by individuals grappling with severe mental infirmities. However, these endeavors encountered vehement opposition from proponents of gun rights and organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), engendering a polarized political milieu.

Concomitantly, the Sandy Hook massacre catapulted salient chinks within the mental health care labyrinth into the national spotlight. Adam Lanza’s saga underscored the imperatives of ameliorating access to mental health amenities, fostering early interventions, and extending holistic succor to individuals grappling with profound mental health afflictions and their kinfolk. A coterie of cognoscenti clamored for augmented financial outlays earmarked for mental health initiatives, enriched pedagogical erudition for educators and healthcare custodians, and a synergetic approach to mental health care encompassing familial support structures.

The cataclysm also engendered overhauls in safety protocols within scholastic enclaves across the nation. A plethora of institutions instituted novel security appurtenances, ranging from barricaded portals to surveillance apparatuses and simulations simulating active shooter scenarios. These interventions aspired towards safeguarding scholars and pedagogues from putative perils, albeit kindling debates concerning the dialectical equilibrium betwixt safety imperatives and the nurturing of an eruditive milieu.

In the quinquennium ensuing the Sandy Hook tragedy, a panoply of inquiries and appraisals endeavored to collate the kaleidoscope of influences pervading Adam Lanza’s depraved deeds. An exposé proffered by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate broached overlooked junctures for remedial interventions and underscored the exigency of a more coordinated retort to his byzantine mental health requisites. The report, moreover, underscored the imperatives of destigmatizing mental infirmities and ensuring the dispensation of holistic succor to individuals analogous to Adam.

The chronicle of Adam Lanza furnishes a dolorous caveat concerning the latent repercussions of unattended mental health vicissitudes, the hazards concomitant with facile access to firearms, and the enduring impact of societal alienation. It impels a clarion call for overhauls within mental health care modalities, more efficacious gun control protocols, and an unwavering commitment towards fostering supportive communities attuned to identifying and addressing the exigencies of imperiled individuals ere they precipitate into crisis.

While the memory of the Sandy Hook debacle continues to evoke abysmal despondency, it also serves as a font of inspiration for the genesis of meaningful transformations. From the advocacy for more stringent gun statutes to enhancements in mental health care and school safety, the aspiration harbored is that the discernments gleaned from this tragic episode may serve as bulwarks against prospective calamities and engender a milieu characterized by empathy and proactive responses to the convoluted exigencies at the intersection of mental health, firearm violence, and communal welfare.

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Donald Trump as Felon: The Fallout

More from our inbox:, a plea for shorter campaigns, nurses’ perspective on gun violence, advice for elon musk: find meaning on earth, not in outer space.

To the Editor:

Re “ Conviction Acts as Rallying Cry for Republicans ” (front page, June 1):

This may be too much to ask of citizens who have already given so much, but it could be immensely powerful if one or more jurors from former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial publicly explained how they arrived at 34 counts of guilty to reaffirm that he received a fair trial. For the safety of the jurors, perhaps there is a way to do this without divulging their identities.

This won’t silence the Republican leaders rallying to the ex-president, but it may resonate with average Americans looking for a fair and truthful voice to explain why the former president is now a convicted felon.

David Baldwin Petaluma, Calif.

There have been a number of letters and opinion pieces criticizing the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, claiming that he has been too creative weaving existing laws together in order to make the case for a felony versus a misdemeanor, and that the charges would have never been brought if Donald Trump had been an ordinary citizen.

I don’t doubt this is true, and I applaud Mr. Bragg for the courage of his conviction (pun intended) and creativity. The jurors didn’t seem to have any problem with his case.

We need to be reminded of other prosecutors in history who have been lauded for courageously and creatively making cases against mobsters who have been too clever by half avoiding obvious charges for their well-known criminal behavior.

Elizabeth Bjorkman Lexington, Mass.

I’m confused. This guy gets convicted of 34 felonies. While awaiting sentencing he accuses the judge of being “a devil.” The same judge who can send him up the river. I must be missing something.

Peter J. Cotch Naples, Fla. The writer is a retired lawyer.

Re “ Loyalists See a Verdict’s Rejection of Trump as a Rejection of Themselves ” (news article, June 3):

Donald Trump’s supporters (and the rest of the country) would do well to remember that the fraudulent business records trial that ended last week was not an isolated event. There is a lengthy trail of illegal and fraudulent activities that preceded it.

In 2016, after accusations of fraud, Mr. Trump was forced to close Trump University and pay a $25 million fine . In 2019, after accusations by the New York attorney general of a “pattern of illegality” at the Trump Foundation, he was forced to close the foundation and pay a $2 million fine.

In 2022 a jury convicted the Trump Organization of tax fraud and the company was fined $1.6 million. In 2023 a jury convicted Mr. Trump of sexual abuse and defamation, and ordered him to pay a $5 million fine. In 2024 a jury convicted Mr. Trump of defamation again and fined him $83 million. In 2024 he was convicted of falsifying his net worth and fined $454 million.

And in addition to the three significant ongoing cases in Washington, D.C., Georgia and Florida, there are several lesser-known civil lawsuits pending against him.

This is a pattern of dishonesty and illegality from a man seeking to hold the highest office in the land. It demonstrates a lack of a moral compass and confirms that he is a fraud. It startles me that people support and trust him.

Bill Barrett Torrey, Utah

Re “ The Trump Trial’s Great Anticlimax ,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, May 22):

Ms. Goldberg is disappointed by a recent poll that showed only 16 percent of Americans followed Donald Trump’s trial very closely. The trial lasted nearly two months, and I am among those who followed it very closely. Most Americans are busy with their jobs and other obligations; I had the time needed for this lengthy show.

It seems to me that this show was very well planned. It had suspense (we didn’t know how the jury would vote). It had plenty of sex from Stormy Daniels, and it had vivid testimony about “catch and kill” deals from David Pecker. Michael Cohen’s stories of doing the bidding of Donald Trump and suffering for it describe at an individual’s level what Mr. Trump has done to both the Republican Party and America.

And how about that ending: The defense called only two witnesses, one of whom turned out to be a Trump witness for the prosecution.

Lastly, the trial led Mr. Trump to compare himself to Al Capone. What writer would have put that in the script?

James Phillips Summit, N.J.

As I was watching coverage of the Trump verdict, I was struck by the number of people who pointed out it would be unfair to give a 77-year-old man a prison sentence. This then raises the question: If he is too old to go to prison, why isn’t he too old to be president?

Frank Dunau Wellesley, Mass.

Reading news coverage of elections in Britain , South Africa , etc., I am struck by how they accomplish their ends in such a short period.

Perhaps if we did not allow presidential campaigns to last for two years, some of the toxicity of partisanship might be ameliorated. The way we currently undertake these elections is more like entertainment than meaningful politics.

Mary Ann Sternberg Baton Rouge, La.

How the Pandemic Reshaped American Gun Violence

The footprint of gun violence in the U.S. has expanded, as shootings worsened in already suffering neighborhoods and killings spread to new places during the pandemic years.

Re “ How the Pandemic Reshaped American Gun Violence ” (nytimes.com, May 14):

This article reports and illustrates how gun violence has become an everyday aspect of life for communities across the United States. Representing the first line of defense in care settings, nurses share in the suffering that affects patients and their families.

Nurses witness the carnage, wounds, tears, screams, anger and sheer loss of human life that result from gun violence. If we were to regularly broadcast the accounts from nurses, the indecision and inaction that prevent meaningful legislation to address gun safety and firearm access would end. Scrambling to stop the bleeding from a bullet in someone who was at school, at work, at a grocery store, is routine for many nurses.

We need solutions now. Limiting the availability of handguns, requiring guns to be securely stored, instituting waiting periods during purchases, mandating universal background checks for all firearm purchases, as well as closing loopholes for private and gun show sales, are just a few examples.

When will we realize that something is deeply wrong? How long will leaders sit idly while this public health crisis continues?

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy Eugene, Ore. The writer is president of the American Nurses Association.

Re “ Life in SpaceX’s Company Town ,” by Christopher Hooks (Opinion guest essay, May 26):

What a sad, sad essay, so well done by Mr. Hooks. The SpaceX mission is to save humankind from the potential collapse of this planet by going to other planets? Yet, we take ourselves — the source of our troubles on Earth — with us.

Space will not cleanse us of our hubris, our avarice, our destructiveness. Elon Musk thinks that by going into space he might “find out the meaning of life”? The meaning is right here, right now.

Meaning is made, not found. The meaning is a series of clichés: Be kind to one another. Help one another. Care for one another. Make sure everyone is fed and housed and supported. Take care of the Earth for our own sake and the sake of all other beings.

Get the stars out of your eyes and live the lovely, amazing, humble, deeply satisfying human life that this planet makes possible for us.

Jonathan P. Levin Northampton, Mass.

Judge rejects call to immediately shut down Alex Jones’ Infowars in bankruptcy dispute

(AP) - After a weekend in which conspiracy theorist Alex Jones warned that his media company faced an imminent shutdown by the federal government because of his bankruptcy cases, a judge on Monday allowed Jones to keep operating for the next two weeks while it is decided whether his assets should be liquidated.

Both Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy reorganization after he lost two lawsuits and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. They sued Jones for calling the shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, a hoax, claiming defamation and infliction of emotional distress.

The families have opposed Jones’ reorganization plans. On Sunday, they filed an emergency motion to convert Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy reorganization into a liquidation, saying Jones has not made progress in showing how he will pay the lawsuit judgments.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said Monday that he will address the motion on June 14, when a decision on whether to liquidate Jones and his company’s assets is expected.

Jones went on his web and radio show over the weekend with “emergency broadcasts” claiming Free Speech Systems, including his Infowars broadcasts, were going to be shut down at any minute by the federal government and bankruptcy system. That did not happen. At one point, he urged his followers to form a human chain around his studio in Austin, Texas, to protect it.

Some of Jones’ comments came in profanity-laden rants, and Jones appeared to cry at points.

“There’s really no avenue out of this,” Jones said on his show Sunday. “I’m kind of in the bunker here. And don’t worry. I’ll come back. The enemy can’t help but do this attack.”

On Saturday, Jones was defiant, saying “At the end of the day, we’re going to beat these people. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but it’s been a hard fight. These people hate our children.”

The broadcasts were in response to apparent disputes between Jones, a chief restructuring officer appointed by the bankruptcy court to oversee Jones’ company and another company that supplies the nutritional supplements Jones sells on his shows, according to lawyers in the bankruptcy cases. Jones made disparaging comments about the restructuring officer over the weekend, one of the lawyers said.

The other company that supplies the supplements, PQPR Holdings Limited, is actually mostly owned by Jones. A lawyer for PQPR said in court Monday that the company opposed allowing Free Speech Systems and Infowars to continue operating until June 14, alleging Jones was being uncooperative in the bankruptcy discussions and calling for an immediate closure of Free Speech Systems.

The PQPR attorney, Stephen Lemmon, told the judge that there was no agreement to allow Free Speech Systems to continue operating after Monday.

“We think that everybody is better off if this just gets shut down right now,” Lemmon said.

Annie Catmull, a lawyer for Free Speech Systems, asked the judge to continue allowing the company to operate.

Lopez, the judge, ruled that the company can continue to pay employee wages and other expenses until June 14, after asking the lawyers to “take the temperature down” in their arguments.

Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, claimed Jones was “manufacturing a crisis” about the threat of being shut down imminently, noting that the dispute was between two Jones-owned companies. PQPR also claims Free Speech Systems owes it millions of dollars in unpaid bills for the nutritional supplements, a debt called bogus by the families’ attorneys.

Jones’ lawyers have been unable to reach an agreement over the past several months with the families’ lawyers on how to resolve the bankruptcy cases. Jones’ lawyer recently said in court that the cases appear headed to liquidation or may be withdrawn.

Liquidation could mean that Jones would have to sell most of what he owns, including his company and its assets, but could keep his home and other personal belongings that are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. Proceeds would go to his creditors, including the Sandy Hook families.

If the cases are withdrawn, it would put Jones back in the same position he was in after the $1.5 billion was awarded in the lawsuits and it would send efforts to collect the damages back to the state courts where the verdicts were reached.

The families of many, but not all, of the Sandy Hook victims sued Jones and won the two trials in Connecticut and Texas.

The relatives said they were traumatized by Jones’ comments and the actions of his followers. They testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed.

According to the most recent financial statements filed in the bankruptcy court, Jones personally has about $9 million in assets including his $2.6 million Austin-area home and other real estate. He also listed his living expenses at about $69,000 for April alone, including about $16,500 for expenses on his home including maintenance, housekeeping and insurance.

Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, had nearly $4 million in cash on hand at the end of April. The business made nearly $3.2 million in April, including from selling the dietary supplements, clothing and other items that Jones promotes on his show, while listing $1.9 million in expenses.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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