Senior Owen Blackwell shooting skeet at the range. Photo Courtesy of Reporter Josiah McCarley.
Gun control and how the second amendment should be interpreted is a hot topic of debate for San Luis Obispo high students. But what do the people of slohs think about guns and how our government deals with them.?
Expressions interviewed some of your peers to find out what they think.
Expressions: What would you say the biggest danger of people owning firearms is?
Senior Owen Blackwell: The biggest danger of people owning firearms currently is suicide, over half of all deaths related to firearms is suicide.
Sophomore Matthew Haynes: I would say the biggest danger of owning a firearm is that some people don’t know proper gun safety.
Senior Emily Niebuhr: The biggest danger of owning firearms is that they fall into the hands of people with mental illness or people who don’t know how to properly use and store them. The argument that guns themselves are not the problem proves that they should not be allowed into the hands of the masses because people are the variable that make them deadly.
Expressions: Should we ban the AR-15?
Senior Owen Blackwell: I don’t believe banning the AR-15 is a positive move in preventing gun violence as long as there are guns on the streets and in the hands of people who want to do harm there will be gun violence as long as there are tools to hurt people people will hurt other people. So I don’t think that banning a single type of firearm will prevent that. You can look to Canada. They banned AR-15 and immediately people started selling AR-10s which have the exact functionality of an AR-15 just in a different caliber.
Sophomore Matthew Haynes: I don’t think that we should ban the AR-15. The reasoning I see for banning these ARs are because of mass shootings. If you look at the statistics for most of the shootings, they use pistols. Pistols pose a bigger danger for people because they are easy to hide.
Senior Emily Niebuhr: I don’t think there is a need to have semi-automatic weapons in the hands of civilians. AR-15s are one of the most commonly used rifles in school shootings.
Expressions: Do you think the gun laws we have now work and if not how what laws or restrictions would you put in place?
Sophomore Matthew Haynes: I would say that the gun laws don’t work completely. What we need to do is make guns less accessible. For example I was able to walk in and shoot a shotgun in 10-20 minutes. It just shows that anyone can go and shoot a weapon as such without even a background check. We just need to have a system for people to obtain these weapons more securely.
Senior Owen Blackwell: I do not think the gun laws we have currently work at all. I think that we should remove most restrictions on firearm ownership.
Senior Emily Niebuhr: People need more thorough background checks so guns aren’t as widely accessible to those with mental illness.
Expressions: Why do you think the second amendment was written?
Sophomore Matthew Haynes: I think the rule was written so we could protect ourselves. Even if it’s not applicable to us in the way it was then, it’s still an important part of our country today.
Senior Owen Blackwell: The second amendment was created after the revolutionary war in order to enshrine the right to bear arms inside the constitution. This is because firearm ownership among the populace is integral to preventing a tyrannical government and overthrowing tyrannical government with armed rebellion.
Senior Emily Niebuhr: The American government feared tyranny so they wanted people to have the option to rise up against potentially unjust power.
Expressions: Do you think the second amendment is outdated?
Senior Emily Niebuhr: The second amendment was passed when “arms” equated to muskets, so yes, I do think it is outdated. Society was also very different in the late 1700s, in the wake of a revolution, from how it is now.
Sophomore Matthew Haynes: No. The amendments are there for a reason and we have our natural rights once we are born. These are free speech, liberty, and property. We should be able to protect our property.
Senior Owen Blackwell: I think the second amendment is just as applicable today as it was when it was first written. I think that the founding fathers knew that to prevent tyrannical government the populace needed to be armed.
As you can see students at this school have a large range of views and opinions on how firearms should be addressed and we have smart people on all sides of the debate.