Citizens in the United States are granted the right to own a gun. Any individual 18 years of age or older may purchase a rifle or shotgun from a federally licensed dealer in any state and any individual 21 years of age or older may acquire a handgun from a dealer federally licensed to sell firearms in the individual's state of residence under the gun law in the United States. Statistics had shown that about 59.1 million adults in the United States personally own a gun. Roughly 93 million adults or 49% of the adult U.S. population are living in households with guns. these have shown us that it is a norm for the people in U.S. to have their own firearms.
This norm has resulted in the widespread handgun violence in America. People are given the right to own a gun for safety and security purposes. However, some are actually abusing the right entitled to them. Gun has become a tool to help fufil their private desires. The recent Virginia tech massacre sparked off a series of debates on the gun control law in U.S. Despite his stay in a Virginia psychiatric facility, shooter Cho Seung-Hui was able to purchase a handgun leading to an outrage from gun control advocates.
In my opinion, the gun control law should be reformed. Currently, under the federal control law, anyone who had been committed to a mental institution involuntarily would be prohibited from buying firearms. However, nowadays people are committed into such mental institution willingly. The issue of concern is that the possibilities of patients suffering a relapse after their recovery are very high. This means that they will still pose a danger to the public despite receiving treatment. Thus, the law should be refined to include people with disabilities who had been adjudicated to be mentally ill and a danger to oneself or others. These people should be judged by doctors to prove that they will pose a threat to the society.
The Americans should stop tolerating gun laws and condemning thousands of innocent deaths every year. It is essential to reform the law to prevent a repeat of such a horrifying incident. The Americans should adopt the action taken by the Australians to limit the availability of guns in the country. The Australians had banned most types of semi-automatic weapons after the 1996 shooting spree by a man with a semi-automatic rifle who killed 35 people in Port Arthur, on the island of Tasmania. Such tougher restrictions would be able to minimize the number of innocent deaths each year and Australia has experienced the success. Reforming the law will certainly change the current situation in one way or another.
with references to:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,161377,00.html
Labels: Task 4
posted by Si Hui @ 4:54 PM
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