Argumentative Essay: Gun Control In The United States

Gun Control is an emotional topic that elicits very strong emotions and arguments. It seems rare to find anyone that has not formed a solid opinion, is dogmatic, and of the opinion that anyone who dissents with them is of less intelligence. Just the definition of Gun Control can spark a heated debate. On one side of the spectrum appears to be those who want to move to a model such as those in Europe by banning all privately owned firearms. The other extreme is a staunch interpretation of the Second Amendment that every American has the right to own any firearm without registration or tracking by the Federal Government an anything less is unacceptable Gun Control. An underlying theme is whether the individual believes the authorities are

I am familiar that you can alter the outcome significantly by the definition of variables and by controlling what is included and what is excluded. My first thought, when presented a statistic as fact, is to question the source and definitions used. The terms “gun violence”, “mass shootings”, and “gun victimizations” require understanding of what is included and excluded from the definitions being touted. The FBI met, debated, and determined their definition of mass murder to gain consistency across their offices. In a 2005, the FBI symposium agreed; “Generally, mass murder was described as a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. These events typically involved a single location, where the killer murdered a number of victims in an ongoing incident (e.g. the 1984 San Ysidro McDonalds incident in San Diego, California; the 1991 Luby’s Restaurant massacre in Killeen, Texas; and the 2007 Virginia Tech murders in Blacksburg, Virginia).” After deliberation, the following new simplified definition was proposed, “Serial Murder: The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” (Morton) While this definition has been adopted by the FBI only after a symposium and debate, the media outlets,