Millions of guns are sold every year in America with no questions asked. Looking at the recent acts of violence in America one can clearly see that guns play a major role in these horrendous acts. Some people think America should have stricter gun laws or abolish citizens from purchasing guns altogether. Others think it is a violation of our Second Amendment and should not be changed. But when should the government draw the line? There are many more ways to show the harmful effects of firearms in our society than just statistics. Stories of parents who have lost their children and children left fatherless or motherless due to gun violence show the negative impacts of guns more than any statistic could ever show. That's why gun laws in America should be much stricter than they are now. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Firearms are dangerous objects, and unless you are a police officer or use firearms to hunt, why would you need a gun. According to the John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research “More than 31,000 people each year in the United States die from gunshot wounds and more than 80,000 are injured.” This may seem like a small number to some considering there are over 350 million people living in the United States. In the United States, however, the effects of gun violence extend far beyond these victims. Gun violence shapes the lives of millions of Americans who witness it, know someone who has been shot, or live in fear of the next shooting. Bruce D. Perry, a psychiatrist and one of the nation's leading experts on childhood trauma, says, "Even children who come from middle- and upper-middle-class communities literally do not feel safe in schools." This is due to the numerous school shootings that have occurred in recent years. Since 2000 there have been 130 school shootings, sixty people killed and about sixty injured (Chui and Horton). There are many gun control laws that could be passed to help prevent gun violence, but the problem is getting everyone to agree on them. To get enough people to agree to pass a gun control law, Congress will have to find a middle ground — that is, not eliminating guns entirely but adding restrictions or making it harder to buy a gun. One plausible gun law to help control gun violence and save lives is limiting the size of gun magazines. This would help stop mass shootings by limiting the amount of ammunition a gun can hold. Another possible law that could be passed to help prevent gun violence involves stricter background checks. This would help prevent criminals from purchasing guns, and this bill would hold federal and state agencies accountable if they fail to upload criminal records into the background check system. A third conceivable law to help stop gun violence is an ammunition restriction law. An ammunition restriction law is different from a magazine restriction law because a magazine restriction law controls the amount of ammunition a gun can hold at one time, while an ammunition restriction law controls the amount of ammunition a person can buy at the same time. This law would help prevent violencearmed forces and mass shootings like the one that occurred in Las Vegas. SWAT teams found hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the killer's hotel room and thousands more in his home in Nevada (Millstein). If this law were passed, people would not be able to have so much ammunition at one time. All these laws are plausible because they don't take away people's guns, but they take more precautions when selling guns. Many gun advocates will try to tell you that they have the right to self-defense and they wouldn't. feeling safe not being able to own a gun or carry one around. Yet, according to procon.org, “between 2007 and 2011, 0.79% of victims protected themselves with the threat of using or using a firearm” (Truman and Planty). This shows that a very low percentage of people actually use firearms to protect themselves. Even when shootings occur in locations where firearms are used, where there are undoubtedly armed people nearby, this vigilante scenario simply doesn't work. That's because pulling out a gun and returning fire in the chaos of a mass shooting only makes things worse. People will say that guns make us safer, but we already have more guns per capita than any other nation on Earth. According to UNODC homicide statistics, the United States also has the highest gun homicide rate of any developed nation. Its rate is 32 times that of Britain. When it comes to the Second Amendment, owning a gun is not an unlimited right. Gun control laws are as old or older than the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects individual gun ownership. Another argument gun advocates will make is recreational gun use. What sports require an assault weapon that fires 900 rounds per minute? And is there any mass killing capacity that would be overkill for your recreational sport? You don't need AR-15 style weapons for hunting. Another reason why there should be stricter gun control laws is that there would be fewer suicides. The suicide rate has only increased in recent years. According to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, 44,965 suicides were recorded in 2016. Just over half of these suicides occurred with firearms. “People living in U.S. states with high rates of household gun ownership are nearly four times more likely to die by gun suicide than in states where fewer families own guns.” The gun suicide rate in the United States is eight times that of other high-income countries. Americans need to be more informed about the prevalence of gun suicide, how access to a gun increases the risk of suicide, and what steps they can take to reduce their risk. Most Americans who own guns think that owning a firearm makes them safer. The truth is that access to a firearm increases the risk of suicide for all family members by almost four times (Anglemyer and Rutherford). In the absence of public health campaigns led by the federal government, trusted experts such as law enforcement, gun dealers, and medical professionals have launched campaigns that help inform Americans about the risks of firearms in the home and how to reduce them risks. mind: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay To reiterate, we have already seen the horrors of what guns can do. Thousands of Americans are killed by gun violence, and millions more are affected. The only thing that can be done.