Gun Control: Assault Weapons

Should the United States Government pass laws that would prevent the production and sale of semi-automatic assault weapons? Recently, an interesting and heated controversy about the regulation of semi-automatic firearms has been taking place in the United States of America. This controversy has arisen because of recent tragedies that have occurred throughout the country. A couple of these tragedies include the mass shooting in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, and the mass killing of twenty children and six faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Two other recent events that have sparked the controversy were the shooting in Tucson, Arizona where Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords was shot and at Virginia Tech University where thirty-two people were killed and seventeen were injured. In all of these events, semi-automatic weapons were used by the shooters. In a video with Officer Leroy Pyle of the San Jose Police Department, Pyle explains the difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms. The main difference is that automatic firearms will continuously fire rounds with one pull of the trigger while a semi-automatic firearm will only fire one round for each pull of the trigger. This is the same or similar technology that is present in many hunting rifles and shotguns (Pyle). While the United States has always been a country that is “gun-friendly” and a place where people take the Second Amendment very seriously, many advocates of gun control believe that putting some restrictions on the production and sale of semi-automatic firearms will help to reduce and prevent tragedies like the ones that have occurred in recent times. Some of these advocates, such as many leaders of the Democratic Party, think that government regulations on these types of weapons is the answer to solve a large part of the gun violence that occurs in this country. On the other hand, pro-gun groups, such as the National Rifle