Are There Any Acts That Are Currently Legal That You Think Should Be Illegal? Essay Sample

If so what? And if not, why not?

Possession and ownership of a gun or firearm by persons, who are not engaged in law enforcement or professions or jobs involving significant risks of harm from criminals, should be outlawed. By its nature, a gun is made to maim, hurt and kill and they were invented primarily to serve as weapons during wartime. Other than these, guns have no other functional use. Why should, for example, Nancy Lanza – the mother of Adam Lanza who killed 26 persons mostly elementary students aged 6 and 7 – keep a veritable arsenal of firearms at her home, which her son accessed to gun down his victims in an elementary school in 2012 (Haley and Bohm 2014, p. 24)? It was said that Mrs. Lanza was a gun enthusiast, but the satisfaction or whatever feeling generated in putting a hole in a lifeless target with a bullet cannot offset the danger such a tool can inflict when used carelessly or when it falls into the wrong hands.
Gun possession should be made illegal because of the dangers it poses. According to Haley and Bohm (2014, p. 25), criminal behavior is characterized as anti-social. When one possesses and carries a gun for no other reason than as a general security for self-defense or for sport, does not this indicate anti-social behavior? A person should strive to be in harmony with all members of society, resolve conflicts peacefully and refrain from any acts or keep things in possession that can potentially cause harm to others. The mere presence of firearms already creates a threat to public safety because of the potential harm they pose. Although gun possession cannot be exactly classified as mala in se because it is not until it is discharged when it creates physical or mental harm (Haley and Bohm 2014, p. 33), its history indicates that its use is primarily to harm, whether in offense or defense. In a highly civilized society with established law enforcement and criminal justice system, Americans and their children should not live under the fear that one day another Adam Lanza would arm himself to the teeth from the armory of his father or mother’s gun collection and train them on their innocent children.

References

Haley, K. and Bohm, R. (2014). Introduction to Criminal Justice. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.