By CAMILLE ROMERO
Los Alamos Student

I am Camille Romero, a 15 year old at Los Alamos High School and have taken a hunter safety course as well as been in a situation where my family and I have had to use a gun to defend ourselves from a mountain lion.

This experience helped me realize how important guns can be when someone is in a position where they need to defend themselves from an animal or a person. Without a gun, my family and I would have had to face the consequences of getting attacked by that mountain lion.

Today in New Mexico gun control is an issue that is being discussed in the legislature as well as many New Mexico residents. Many people are in favor of gun control in hope to stop all the gun violence in New Mexico while others do not believe that it will be the wisest solution.

Both anti-gun control and gun conrol supporters value the safety of the masses, but both supporters and anti-supporters of gun control have different perspectives as to what the solution could be. Guns may be used as a weapon to commit crimes, but the person using the gun is responsible for the crime so getting rid of guns will not be a solution, but paying attention to the person who holds the gun will. 

Gun control is not going to be efficient for New Mexico and the United States as a whole because every person has their own values and ethics as to what would be best. If guns are banned then it could cause more problems and victims if someone were to steal an illegal gun because in most situations criminals will go as far as obtaining an illegal gun from a different country in order to commit their crime.

For example, “Should More Gun Control Laws be Enhanced”, specifies that, “Approximately 50,000 guns were recovered by police in Chicago … more than half came from outside of Illinois”, so this proves banning guns in a state or country will nor stop criminals from accessing guns.

When criminals use an illegal or stolen gun it will make it harder for authorities to catch them. If a state, like New Mexico, were to ban guns, the surrounding states and country will know we will not have a source of self defense. Research about surrounding states in the United States with little gun restriction reported, “‘States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes…’”  which means eliminating guns from a certain state will cause more crimes overall. These crimes can lead to severe injury or even death, if the victim has no source of self-defense. 

Getting rid of guns is not the solution to violence. In every situation a person is the one that is killing a person and a gun is just used as a tool. Many criminals will find other options or steal illegal weapons to commit their crimes.

Gun control advocates support gun control because they want to stop violence. They believe that if a person has no access to a gun then they can not commit a crime, but death related crimes can be done with knives metal or even pills, not just guns. If gun control supporters want to stop violence then they should work towards ensuring facilities for people with mental health issues, or citizens who have been through traumatic events, are available instead of taking New Mexican citizens rights to bear arms away.

The founders of the constitution lived under the tyranny of King George. They put the second amendment in place to ensure, ‘“that these free people in this new country would never be subjugated again and have to live under tyranny.”’ as mentioned in the article “Should more Gun Control Laws be Enhanced”.

The amendment was put into place to ensure United States citizens will be able to bare arms and protect ourselves as well as our families. Giffords law center also mentions that “banning the carrying of all firearms, concealed or unconcealed, violated article II, § 6.” Article II, § 6 talks about how no law should restrict or prevent citizens from bearing arms whether it be for hunting, sports, or self-defense. This means that if guns are banned then our second amendment as well as this article will be violated and the United States amendment and article would have been put into place for almost nothing since we will be disregarding them after the matter. 

Guns play an important role in self-defense. Guns can help defend you from people and even animals. For example, a majority of New Mexico residents live in the mountains or the country and need to be able to defend themselves and their livestock from mountain lions, bears, bobcats, lynx, as well as many other dangerous animals.

Owning a gun will help keep citizens safe as Richard Perez-Pena, a well known writer for The New York Times, said, “giving people the power of self-defense, and dissuading criminals from victimizing people who might be armed.” If a criminal knows that the soon-to-be-victim is armed then they will be less likely to bring harm to them.

According to Amy Swear, a writer for The Heritage Foundation, “almost all national studies of self defensive gun uses have found that firearms are used in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times every year in the United States”. An example of a case where a gun would have saved a life was the night my uncle got killed. If my uncle would have had a gun the night he got beat to death with a metal level by five men, he would have had a tool to defend himself. He could have used the gun as a threat to scare off the men without resulting in any deaths or injuries that night. Having a gun would have prevented an unnecessary death and grieving that may continue to happen if guns are banned. This example also shows that a weapon is just a tool and no matter what weapon is used, the criminal is the one making the decision to harm or kill someone.

If guns are banned in New Mexico many more people may get hurt. Instead of banning guns our state should put into place more mental health care places as well as put more attention into the person buying the gun. Stricter background checks can be put into place as well as a mental health check on the gun owner every four or so years.

Another way to assure the gun is going into the hands of a well educated person is to require a certificate from a gun safety or hunters safety course. By doing this it can prevent firearms accidents and even crimes since the gun would be owned by someone who has education about guns and has passed all the background and mental health checks. By carrying this out gun crimes that are performed with legal guns will lower within the state.