The opinions, viewpoints, and beliefs expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the opinions, viewpoints, or beliefs of the Titan Times newspaper, Tuscarora High School or Frederick County Public Schools.

In the Titan Times newsroom, we often engage in discussions concerning topical subjects. The purpose of these discussions to to try to figure out what sort of news we should cover vs. what sort of news isn’t really a good fit for our publication. Lately, we’ve had several discussions about guns, shootings, and what, if anything, our elected leaders should do to prevent these things from happening. What follows is a point/counterpoint by two writers for the Titan Times.

Gun Control: Reality Vs. Political Propaganda

by Tim Strasser

It happens too often, a mentally disturbed individual, armed to the teeth, selects innocent targets, and opens fire. The result is a senseless loss of life. Most recently this happened in Las Vegas with what is now being called the worst mass shooting in modern American history. We are all outraged, and sad, and we want things to change, we want this to never happen again. So we ask our politicians to do something to protect us. But, what can politicians do? The obvious answer is more firearm regulations. But, what sort of regulations do we want? Are we even aware of the regulations we already have? And, most importantly, will regulations prevent, or even diminish gun violence?

As a nationally ranked competitive shooter, its fair to say I’m pretty deep in the world of firearms, and it provides me an interesting point of view when talking to people who may have never fired, or even seen a gun outside of Hollywood movies and the news. These outlets have not portrayed the shooting community in a good light, and this is reflected in a number of interviews I did with students at THS. Out of the 26 students I interviewed, nearly 89% of students referred to themselves as anti gun, or pro regulation, and there seemed to be one clear trend among these students, they wanted more regulation. So that stands the question, do they know what kind of gun control we already have in the United States? What I found is disturbing to say the least. Let me preference this by saying I asked 4 simple questions, and the first question was “where do you stand on gun control?” and was not graded, I simply asked so I could categorize their responses. The next 3 questions were: “Are there any federal level gun control laws?”, “Can you buy an ‘Assault Rifle’ in the state of Maryland”, and “Is there any legal scenario where you can buy a gun without a background check?”. The purpose of those 3 questions was simple, the first question directly asked about federal law, and would acknowledge if the person knew any federal level gun legislation and is by far the easiest question. The second references the largest gun control bill in the state of Maryland, passed nearly 4 years ago but has had a MASSIVE impact on the shooting sport in Maryland. And the last to gauge their knowledge of background checks and if they were mandatory. These 3 questions covered a very broad spectrum, and were by no definition difficult. What i uncovered from this, is that most people, including those who are “pro gun” are ignorant of the legislation already regulating US gun law. 89% of students at Tuscarora who identify as “pro regulation” would have failed with a 66% or less, and 2/3rds of those who identify as anti gun failed with a 0%, but these people still argue for additional gun control. So when events, like that of what happened in las vegas are reported in a negative light, these students who already know very little are unfairly indoctrinated into an ideology of more regulation, without knowing the entire situation.

So, what do people who want additional regulation want passed? I posed this question to a number of people who I asked, and consistently, the response I got was “I don’t know”. On 4 separate instances I got that exact response, and even worse are the responses I got following those 4. I got a number of responses that showed peoples blatant ignorance towards american gun law, a number of people proclaimed they want a minimum age to buy a firearm, one girl even saying “you shouldn’t be able to buy a gun when you’re 16”, and many others expressed that they would like to ban “assault rifles” or “military style weapons”, without recognizing the real issues with gun crime in the US. Which are both already enforced to great effect in the state of Maryland. Or, wanted extremely unconstitutional laws passed.

To bring this to a close, guns are a issue in the US. But one problem just as large is the ignorance of gun law, and what kind of regulation we have already, and a lack of understanding of real issues regarding guns. Though I got countless responses about the mentally impaired buying assault rifles, I only got one response regarding suicide rates, the overwhelming amount of gun crime among gangs, and the rate of which rifles are used to kill compared to that of a small handgun. And just as scary, not one person could directly quote any gun control law, including extremely regressive state level laws. What we need as a nation is to make the real knowledge of these laws and regulations at least public, so when we have shootings like those in Vegas, we don’t have these gun control debates. Rather we take these events for what they are, tragedies, that laws cannot prevent without revoking everyone’s constitutional rights.

Gun Control: The Reality of Regulation

by Ethan Samet

As is somewhat common now in our society recently there was a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs Texas. This shooting was the result of a lone deranged gunman who our system failed to control even when there were clear indicators that this man should not have owned a gun. The shooter purchased his two firearms legally from a gun shop and proceeded to use those to murder 26 innocent churchgoers. These needless deaths from yet another mark on the list of 132 shooting events since August 1st, 1966 when another lone, deranged gunman murdered innocent university students from the Texas University Tower. During these 132 incidents 274 firearms have been used with at least 164 of those firearms having been obtained legally. So in light of these horrendous statistics this article will attempt to analyze the success of both very stringent gun policy and very loose gun policy in order to hopefully make people more aware of what seems to work and what doesn’t.

First let us look at one state with some of the most stringent gun legislation in the country in order to see just how well all those gun laws work. Maryland has been and continues to be one of the hardest states to acquire a firearm in. To start Maryland has labeled a great many number of both rifles and handguns as assault weapons which our state has placed an outright ban on. You must also acquire a specialized permit if you wish to purchase a handgun that requires background checks, fingerprint collection, and specialized training and the permit does not exempt you from requiring a comprehensive background check when going to actually purchase the handgun. Maryland also keeps a record of all handgun transactions and requires that all automatic weapons be registered with the state police. It is also important to note that magazines in Maryland with a capacity above 10 rounds are illegal for both handguns and rifles. On top of all this a prospective firearm owner in Maryland must still go through the federal NICS background check, be a minimum age of 18, and go through a waiting period that typically lasts around 7 days after purchase before they actually receive their weapon. What this seems to have accomplished is that in 2005, 2014, 2015 Maryland’s gun related death rate per 100,000 people was 11.9, 9.0, 11.9 respectively according to the CDC. This places Maryland generally a little bit above the middle of the death rate spectrum.

Now let us look at a state with some of the loosest gun legislation in the country, Arizona. Arizona does not require prospective gun owners to obtain a state permit prior to purchase nor an owner license. The state also has no magazine restrictions as well as no assault weapon prohibitions or restrictions. While the state is required to comply with the National Firearms Act they do not require that a state level registry of firearms be maintained. Arizona also does not require a permit for open or concealed carry of a firearm, although the person must be at least 21 years of age. When looking at what this less stringent legislation has accomplished we can see that for the same years, 2005, 2014, and 2015, Arizona’s gun related death rates, also per 100,000 people, were 16.1, 13.5, and 13.8 respectively. This is on average around 3.5 more gun related deaths per 100,000 people than Maryland.

If we look at these numbers collectively there is a noticeable difference, while not a major one, in the number of deaths in a state with strict gun legislation as compared to those in a state with loose legislation. Some may argue that this difference is not big enough to prove or warrant more legislation with the aim of firearm restriction as it would not have a significant impact on gun related deaths. Although keep in mind by this same logic it makes no sense to enact laws labeling certain drugs as illegal as those laws have not completely rooted out the problem of illicit substances. The argument proposed here is not that Americans be forced to give up all their weapons, it is merely that we make sure they are better secured and registered. With laws that let law enforcement know who has deadly weapons capable of murdering 10 people in ten seconds and that force gun owners to properly secure their firearms at all times we may be able to cut down on the so may needless gun deaths in this country.

 Sources:

https://www.deseretnews.com/top/1428/0/10-states-with-the-strictest-gun-laws.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/04/california-has-the-nations-strictest-gun-laws-here-are-the-other-strictest-and-loosest-states/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/?tid=graphics-story
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/assault-weapons-laws/?utm_term=.502a9523b345

https://www.deseretnews.com/top/1429/0/10-states-with-the-most-lenient-gun-laws-.html

http://www.gunsandammo.com/network-topics/culture-politics-network/best-states-for-gun-owners-2015/

https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/states-loosest-gun-laws.html/?a=viewall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Maryland

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/08/us/texas-church-shooting/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/05/us/texas-church-shooting-what-we-know/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Arizona