This paper analyzes the growing epidemic of gun violence in the United States, focusing on high-profile mass shootings such as Sandy Hook and the Columbine High School attack. Drawing on FBI reports and Harvard University research, the paper documents a dramatic increase in mass shootings since 2007. It then examines the National Rifle Association's lobbying power — including its successful blockage of federal background-check legislation and its recall campaigns against state lawmakers — and critiques the NRA's use of hyperbole and conspiracy rhetoric. The paper concludes by surveying how individual states responded to the Newtown massacre with a mix of tighter restrictions and expanded gun-carry rights.
The paper demonstrates effective use of contrast and juxtaposition as an argumentative device. By placing polling data (90% public support for background checks) directly alongside the Senate's failure to pass those checks, the author lets factual contrast carry the critical weight without over-editorializing. This technique — letting evidence argue — is a disciplined way to sustain an analytical rather than purely polemical tone even on a politically charged topic.
The paper opens with a survey of landmark mass shooting incidents to establish urgency, then transitions to two bodies of statistical evidence (FBI and Harvard) to quantify the trend. A substantial middle section critiques the NRA's rhetoric and political tactics, supported by legislative examples from Colorado and the Surgeon General nomination fight. The paper closes with a state-by-state survey of post-Newtown legislation, balancing examples of tightened restrictions against expanded carry rights before a brief concluding paragraph.
Among the many gruesome mass killings reported on television screens and in newspapers across the country in recent years, the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, stands out as the most egregiously inhumane. A twenty-year-old individual, clearly deranged and lacking in human feeling, entered Sandy Hook on Friday, December 14, 2012, and "executed 20 young children and six teachers and administrators" (Thompson, 2014). There were reports that some of the children were shot in the forehead multiple times. The killer, Adam Lanza, turned a gun on himself, but the damage he caused could never be undone, and the parents of those kindergartners and first-grade children must live with the tragedy for the rest of their lives.
Thompson, writing in the peer-reviewed journal Society, notes that between 1997 and 2012, "ten boys have killed 73 students, parents, and teachers, and wounded 99 more" across the nine school shooting incidents that have received the most public attention (Thompson, 2014). Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, students at Columbine High School in Colorado, are among the most highly publicized of young killers. The pair killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves, but they had far larger ambitions than shooting their classmates.
Thompson explains that Klebold and Harris had planned, for more than a year before their 1999 attack, to "bomb and level the entire school in a series of massive explosions and then shoot everyone left alive." Columbine High School had approximately 2,000 students and 150 teachers and staff at the time (Thompson, 2014).
For people who follow the news closely, the apparent increase in mass shootings over the past fifteen years reflects an actual, dramatic rise. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported in September 2014 that there had been an average of 16.4 mass shootings each year between 2007 and 2013 (Schmidt, 2014). In the years 2000 to 2006, the average was 6.4 mass shootings per year, making the increase since 2007 stark and undeniable (Schmidt, 2014).
Four hundred eighty-six people died in mass shootings over the thirteen-year period studied, and 366 of those deaths occurred in the most recent seven years, Schmidt reports. The FBI report excluded shootings rooted in gang violence or domestic disputes and found that in 44 of the 64 cases examined, the gunfire lasted "less than five minutes" (Schmidt, 2014). In 23 of those 64 cases the gunman completed his attack in under two minutes, indicating that perpetrators enter situations with multiple loaded weapons, intending to shoot as quickly as possible before they can be stopped.
The FBI report also noted that in 21 of 45 mass shootings in which officers confronted gunmen, "nine officers were killed and 28 were wounded," leading to the conclusion that "local officers need to be better trained and equipped to stop gunmen intent on slaughter" (Schmidt, 2014).
Data compiled by Harvard University researchers and published by Mother Jones magazine show that a mass shooting has occurred "on average every 172 days since 1982" (Cohen et al., 2014). This research deliberately excluded killings in private homes, where domestic troubles contribute to violence against family and friends. Instead, the data focused on public shootings "in which the shooter and the victims generally were unrelated and unknown to each other, and in which the shooter murdered four or more people" (Cohen et al., 2014).
Since September 6, 2011, fourteen public mass shootings have occurred at an average interval of fewer than 172 days. In the first 29 years studied, beginning in 1982, there was a mass shooting every 200 days on average; in the subsequent three-year phase, mass shootings had occurred "every 64 days on average" (Cohen et al., 2014).
An article in the Christian Science Monitor notes that "children have been dying from gun violence in schools for generations" (Schneider, 2013). The first documented school shooting took place before the U.S. Constitution was ratified: in 1764 a Pennsylvania teacher was shot and killed in front of his students; in 1853 a student in Kentucky murdered a teacher for punishing his brother; in 1891 a 70-year-old man fired a shotgun into a school playground during a lunch break; and in 1946, a 15-year-old student was shot and killed in his Brooklyn school by "seven thugs" (Schneider, 2013).
Americans live in a country with a "celebrated gun myth — a largely invented history of heroism, rather than murder, that is steadily renewed by groups like the National Rifle Association" (Schneider, 2013). Do more guns mean more deadly violence, or do more guns in citizens' hands mean fewer murders? According to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, there is "substantial evidence that more guns means more murders" (Schneider, 2013). States with tougher gun safety laws "have had fewer gun-related deaths," as data compiled by economist Richard Florida confirms (Schneider, 2013).
Schneider concludes that school shootings are not a new phenomenon, but because weapons "have gotten bigger, faster, and more accurate… the death toll has become greater" (Schneider, 2013). One element Schneider does not fully address is that modern handguns can accept magazines holding more than thirty rounds. In the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre of 33 students, the killer fired 174 rounds from two handguns. He may have reloaded during his rampage, but Schneider is correct that the lethality of modern weapons amplifies a violence that has deep historical roots.
The mass shootings examined in this paper have prompted some changes in gun laws. For the most part, however, new legislation appears to expand the rights of those who wish to carry and keep weapons nearby rather than restrict access to them. The deaths of hundreds of people every year from gun violence have become as much a fixture of American life as deaths from automobile accidents. As long as the NRA remains the most powerful lobbying organization in the country, it is unlikely that meaningful national legislation will advance through Congress in the foreseeable future.
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