Dylan Gamboa's List: Essay 3

• Discussion Questions  & Activities

   

  1) How big of a threat to society do you think assault weapons pose?

   

  2) Which do you think is a more effective approach to deterring gun crime:  banning guns or more aggressively prosecuting people who use guns in crimes?  

   

  3) Are you in favor of or opposed to an assault weapons ban? Explain why.  

   

  4) Does banning assault weapons violate the Second Amendment right to bear  arms?

   

  5) Should the legality of assault weapons be based on whether they have any  legitimate uses, or on whether they are dangerous enough to justify outlawing  them?

  • Good questions to consider for essay
• Seven states--California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland,  Massachusetts and New Hampshire--currently have assault-weapons bans.

  • Look up crime rate statistics for each state and see if there is a decline since ban's enactment
• It was part of the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of  1994, a $30.2 billion anti-crime bill pushed by President Bill Clinton (D,  1993-2001) that included crime prevention measures such as hiring new police  officers.

  • Hiring more police officers and enforcing laws against violent crime is going to reduce crime regardless of bans on weapons!
• They point to statistics from a July 2004 report funded by the Justice  Department, which indicated that assault weapons were used in only 2% to 8% of  gun crimes prior to the ban.
• Since criminals generally do not heed gun bans, their only practical effect is  to make law-abiding citizens more vulnerable by leaving them without guns,  critics argue.

• Critics of restricting assault weapons also say that they serve a legitimate  purpose in maintaining readiness among military reservists and members of the  National Guard. The NRA notes that reservists and guardsmen sometimes train, as  civilians, with AR-15s, which are semi-automatic rifles similar to the fully  automatic M-16, the standard U.S. military rifle. Such training is important to  keep those soldiers, many of whom now serve abroad, prepared for combat, critics  say.
• "President Clinton's so-called 'assault weapons' ban was nothing more than a sop  to anti-gun liberals," Rep. Butch Otter (R, Idaho) said in a written statement  after the ban expired. "It provided only the illusion of reducing gun violence,  but it did real damage to our liberties."

  • Supports my personal opinion and the $30.2 billion that better law enforcement works rather than bans

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