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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
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Print Issues

Guns shouldn’t be recreational

By Emily Rodriguez-Vargas

We all have our own views on gun control and the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms.”

Many people exercise this right and believe that because of it, they are able to do whatever they want, even if it means storing deadly weapons in a house of curious, naïve children. Although we have the right to own a gun, it can invite tragic consequences.

Shooting is the most popular seasonal sport in the United States. Utah’s recreational shooting numbers lie at 14.9 percent, with Idaho’s average at 18.9 percent, according to a June 2007 press release by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. These results are more than twice the national average. In addition, a 2006 NSSF survey found approximately 50 million Americans said they had been shooting with a rifle within the past two years.

If shooting is what keeps us entertained, then guns are needed less for self-protection and to provide food than just for fun. This type of hobby is an excuse to feed our aggressive side and to train our mind to accept this use of weapons not out of necessity, but for the thrill it provides. Violent video games are prevalent. Even children are given fake guns as toys.

Guns, loaded and empty, are kept in homes everywhere. According to a Sept. 23 report by the National Rifle Association, more than 250 million privately-owned firearms exist in the United States, with the number increasing by 4.5 million each year. That is almost one gun for every person in the United States. This doesn’t bode well for other statistics. The Canadian Coalition for Gun Control, for example, reports that in 2007, Canada had 188 firearm homicides while the United States had 10,086.

The unbelievable number of weapons available isn’t exactly reassuring. No matter what the reason for owning a gun, it’s more of a danger than an actual protection. The National Center for Victims of Crime provides a study that found the likelihood is 40 times greater that a gun will be used against a member of one’s own family than to prevent a crime if it is kept in the home, whether it is committed out of rage or by mistake. The study also found that once every six hours, an individual between the ages of 10 and 19 will commit suicide by way of a gun.

On the one hand, very few people are actually planning a shooting. We haven’t had any problems with this at the U, and one hopes we won’t in the future. Life is a one-chance game without start-over buttons or multiple lives. People who aren’t responsible enough to have someone else’s life in their hands should be as far away from lethal weapons as possible.

When shooting clay pigeons, deer in the hunting season or anything else, not only does a potential deadly threat exist if something goes wrong, but embracing shooting as enjoyment can be harmful and destructive behavior as well.

Although a stricter control of guns in Utah would be ideal, what is even more important is the education of students and citizens on gun responsibility and an awareness that even recreational use of weapons train their minds to love this type of violence.

If we accept shooting objects for pleasure, and don’t realize it has consequences, we might have an even larger problem in the near future. Instead of using mechanized forms of destruction for recreational purposes, more peaceful hobbies can be found.

As President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

The once-high values of America are found in the gun-loving hands of individuals seeking not to combat real problems such as war, crime and poverty, but to exercise their freedom to the fullest extent for recreation. It is no surprise that although we preach peace in our own neighborhoods, we rank among the most homicide-prone nations.

[email protected]

Emily Rodriguez-Vargas

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