Gun control persuasive essay

	Gun control has been a very polarizing topic since the first gun control laws were written in the 1930s to prevent criminals from having access to guns by mail, and by outlawing the ownership of guns with fully automatic firing capabilities and sawn-off shotguns. Since this law was passed, it has been debated first whether or not any government may restrict gun ownership in accordance with the constitution and in current times how much the government may limit gun ownership.  Guns, being dangerous life threatening devices, should be restricted by law for the sake of public safety.
	Opponents of gun control argue that guns help keep America safer, but if that was the case, the United States would be the safest country in the world, as we have an estimated two hundred seventy million guns, ninety for every hundred people (“Stronger Gun Control”). The fact that America is not one of the safest countries in the world is a testament to the fact that guns do not inherently promote safety in any country. Every day, thirty four Americans are murdered with guns, with many of these guns being illegal; since nineteen sixty eight, more than four hundred thousand people have died in the United States by gunfire (“An Updated Background”). The idea of more guns helping America is a fallacy in the least. Furthermore, more ten- to nineteen-year-olds die from gunshot wounds than from any other cause except motor vehicle accidents (Fund). Is it truly beneficial to allow a large number of youths die from gunshots when they are not even fighting in a war? It is argued that private citizens help bolster security where the police cannot reach within a limited time frame, but of the thirty thousand six hundred and ninety four Americans killed by gunfire in two thousand five, only one hundred and forty seven were killed in justifiable acts of homicide by those private citizens (Dickerson). Why are so many guns allowed in the United States if they are not even used to protect people? The notion of safety through gun ownership is a joke, and a bad one at that.
	Many Americans who are against gun control falsely believe that guns may be kept in safe hands with just a background check, and it would seem logical that it is so, as five hundred thousand people with criminal records have been prevented from buying guns since the passage of the Brady Bill (“Gun Control”). The fact of the matter however is that despite the Brady Bill passage, there are still shootings every single day, and there have been several mass shootings. Jared Loughner, the man that critically injured congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, was able to purchase two guns because his mental records were not in the background check system (“An Updated Background”).