Crackdown on Guns

I read the New York Times Editorial on the new gun restrictions that are trying to be passed in the wake of many public shootings, the latest being the Sandy Hook Elemetary School Shooting, on December 14^th.  The Article was titled “The Moment for Action on Guns.”  The main idea is that certain restrictions urgently need to be passed on guns to prevent such mass killings from occurring again.  The author is stating that there should be background checks done on gun buyers for criminal record and mental illness before a gun is sold to that person.  However the author states this may be difficult because, “40 percent of gun sales take place privately, including most guns that are later used in crimes.”  The author also wants to have a ban on guns that have magazines that hold more than ten bullets.

The author wants you to think that this ban is in dire urgency to prevent the deaths of innocent people.  The author does this by saying that federal gun laws have not been that strict as you think back the several public shootings just in the past year alone.  The author gets you to feel that the ban is in desperate need by using terms like “the slaughter of 20 children and seven adults in Newtown Conn.” which gives a face to the victims of crimes that this ban could supposedly prevent. Also it uses the word “slaughter” which implies the violent nature in which they died.

I took away from this article that new laws should be made to prevent the deaths of innocent people.  Although guns are guns, and they will still be able to do damage, these laws make it more difficult for such a mass murder from occurring again.  My thinking wasn’t really that changed.  I was very much for new gun laws to help end public shootings prior to reading this article.  This editorial enforced my stance on gun restrictions.  I already was opinionated on this subject, but I would like to know, more precisely, what the prior gun laws and restrictions were in contrast to the one’s being proposed.