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Benjamin Kern
Debra Dagher
04/22/15

Gun Rights in the United States

I chose to research gun rights in the United States and specifically the main groups
involved with either the protecting or banishing of guns because of a few things. I have always
been a firm believer in doing what is necessary to protect you, your family, and people you love
even if that means taking the life of someone that is trying to cause harm to them. Also I have
always felt that the 2nd amendment is one of the amendments that has been limited the most out
of them all. The two men that got me most interested into politics and guns in general are my
Uncle who is a police officer and my Dad. They are the true reason I wrote this paper and did the
end genre project. All to show people that guns are a very helpful tool if used correctly and that
everybody should own a gun in order to keep you safe at all time because you never know when
you may be in danger and cannot wait that 5-10 minutes that it takes for the police to respond. In
the end is all about your safety and while I may believe strongly in the use lethal force in order
protect myself others may think that it is overkill and there is a better way to keep yourself safe.
This is such a significant problem because law abiding citizens are having their gun rights
taken away little by little, which goes against the 2nd Amendment which states "A well-regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed." (Second Amendment). This means as a citizen you have the
right to arm yourselves with guns (Bear arms) all in the name of not being infringed upon by the

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government. As an American citizen you should have the right to protect yourself as you see fit
and if you so choose to do this by way of a firearm it is solely your choice.
This problem of gun rights has been explored from many angles and by many people who
all seem to fall into one of three categories. Gun rights need to be limited further to make it
harder for people to possess weapons, gun rights are fine as they are and should stay this way,
and gun rights need to be loosened up making it easier for law abiding citizens to have access to
them if they so please. The people who want to squash gun rights and make it near impossible for
a citizen to own a gun use examples such as the Sandy Hook Shooting which was a shooting at
an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut where a gunman killed 20 students and 6 adults
along with himself ("Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: What Happened?") , Colorado Movie
Theater shooting which was a shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado where a gunman
killed 12 people and wounded 58 before surrendering to police ("Colorado Theater Shooting Fast
Facts - CNN.com."), etc. To prove their point that guns cause harm to other people. A group that
tends to be categorized in this field is the Moms Against Guns ("About - Moms Demand
Action for Gun Sense In America.") a group of people not just mothers who believe in what they
call Gun Sense ("About - Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America."). They say their
main goal is to protect children and this may be because when they first started up this
organization it was right after the Sandy Hook Shooting. The people who believe gun rights are
fine as they are really dont have a group it tends to just be the general public who doesnt look
into this information. On the other hand the people who believe in loosening up the gun laws are
people who believe that no matter what criminals will get their hands on a weapons, so why
shouldnt you be allowed to have one as means for your own protection. The biggest group in
this category by far is the National Rifle Association also known as the NRA. They are a group

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of people from all over the US that believe citizens gun rights are being taken away basically
making the 2nd amendment mean nothing. Their main goal is to give back the citizens their right
to own guns and protect themselves as they see fit (NRA. "NRA History."). This gives a sense of
really two groups on the opposite side of the spectrum who have nothing but 100% different
views and want what is best for their own group.
In my research I found the side of protecting gun rights and even making them a bit
looser to be the side I was persuaded by the most, but I tend to have bias due to the people
around me like my uncle and my dad. I chose to side with the protecting of gun rights because I
believe everybody has a right to protect themselves as they need and if a gun is the choice for
them then you should have the access to it. I cannot figure out a reason why anyone would be
against citizens legally owning a gun. Due to how much paperwork you have to fill out in order
to get a permit and then having to take a test in order to get the gun. It just doesnt make sense to
me unless these are the people wanting to harm citizens since they will have no way to defend
themselves. Also, I really couldnt side with the groups like Moms Demand Action ("About Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America.") because they put off the vibe that guns are
bad no matter whose hands they are in, which in my mind is a close minded like response
because guns dont kill people, people kill people (NRA. "NRA History."). While some may state
guns make it easier to kill people, people arent going stop killing each other just because one of
the array of weapons they have access to will no longer be available legally some proof that
crimes can be committed without a gun and be just as massive is when a 36 year old man stabbed
22 children and 1 adult in china however no deaths were reported ("Man Attacks 22 Kids with
Knife outside China School."). Almost as if they dont want to hear what anybody else wants to
say and only care about themselves and in their mind protecting the children. I believe that guns

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need to be accessible to all law abiding citizens because no matter what you do you will not stop
the over 1 billion dollars worth of illegal guns from coming to the US ("Arms Trafficking
Archives - Havocscope.") and getting into the wrong hands, therefore the citizens should have
the right to be able to combat this by having guns of their own.
I discovered that I believe gun rights are something that do not need to be constricted
even more than they already are because we are not safe even in our own homes because there
are criminals out there who want nothing else but to take all you have and could care less what
happens to you. And as a reader this paper gives you the opportunity to form your own opinions
about gun rights and whether you think they are a necessary thing for citizens to possess. I still
have questions that I never got answers to and they are something I want to keep on pursuing.
The questions I still am stuck on are Why do people have such strong hate for guns and believe
they are nothing but tools for crime? What was the Founding Fathers purpose of the 2nd
Amendment and how would they react to the gun laws in present day? These are questions I
may never get answers to because the first is a more opinionative question and the second
includes wondering what dead people are thinking, so I may never get those answers and be able
to find out all I wanted on this topic. But at the end of the day I made up my mind that I am ProGun Rights and I believe people have the right to protect themselves in any way shape or form.

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Work Citied
NRA. "NRA History." NRA History. NRA, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"About - Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America." Moms Demand Action for Gun
Sense In America. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"Second Amendment." Second Amendment. Cornell University, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: What Happened?" CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 22
Apr. 2015.
"Colorado Theater Shooting Fast Facts - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 22
Apr. 2015.
"Arms Trafficking Archives - Havocscope." Havocscope RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
"Man Attacks 22 Kids with Knife outside China School." NY Daily News. N.p., n.d. Web. 05
May 2015.

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Peer Review
I received a lot of great ideas for adding more detail so I could beef up my paper and
make it more built around information than opinionated thoughts. Examples are somebody told
me to explain what the 2nd Amendment is because some people may not know what exactly it is.
So in this instance I added a direct quote from the amendment and then explained it in a simpler
way. Another suggestion I added in was I explained exactly what the 2 shooting events I added
into the paper were and what happened in them for background knowledge again for if
somebody hadnt seen the news on them. I really didnt exclude any feedback and used it all and
I feel it really beefed up my paper and made it something I am proud of.

I feel the feedback I provided was more focused towards pointing out the good things
inside of the papers of my peers versus focusing on the little details. I feel if I were to do another
peer review I would change this because I saw how much their comments helped me from just
saying maybe explain this a little more to clarify for readers. But in my case I recall making lots
of comments on great sounding sentences or small sections because of the great sentence flow an
example on Vas paper was: The mentality of an impressionist painter is to acquire the here and
now, the exact instance of alternating lights and colors. I just felt that was a very well written
sentence and flowed perfectly. I also commented on the structure of both of the papers I
reviewed and they were pretty much spot on with the structure. The citation was a place I
focused because I was having some questions on citations personally so I used some structure I
found from Vas paper on how to properly cite. Overall I believe giving feedback helped me out
along with helping out the peoples papers I commented on.