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Laquita Brooks
Jessica Gravely
Textual Analysis
16 September 2008
Ban Them All: Guns Only Kill
The article “Ban the Things. Ban Them All” by Molly Ivins discusses how there
should be a stricter law for guns or guns should be banned completely. Ivins is basically indicating that people should not have the power to kill. She agrees with the Second Amendment on
the fact about well-regulated militia should have guns but allowing unregulated citizens to have
guns will eventually destroy the security of the state. Ivins believes there should be some restrictions about ownership of a gun such as the gun should be licensed as well as the owner; there
should be restrictions applied to the usage of the gun; and the guns’ buyers should be tracked.
Ivins states that any fool can pick up a gun and kill with it, so why not just ban them all.
Ivins’s idea about how there should be much stricter laws on guns is completely understandable because anyone can get their hands on a gun in today’s world. Majority of the cases
where people claim they only have a gun in their home for protection still end hurting or killing
someone, or someone accidentally kills themselves.
Ivins says, “Any fool can pick up a gun and kill with it. A gun is literally the power to
kill.”
Guns are not safe and they can’t be used for anything good. Their only intent is to kill. If
guns are not going to be banned, then there should be a lot more restrictions applied to the usage
of a gun.
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Guns are a serious matter and they are not to be played around with nor joked about but
Ivins seems to think otherwise.
In the beginning of the article Ivins says, “I am not anti-gun. I’m pro knife,” and then
suggest that a general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness, and the
whole nation would turn into great runners because you have to catch up with someone to stab
them. Her purpose was to be semi-humorous but I found no humor in the comment at all. That
statement made her argument less effective, less appealing and made her sound stupid because
neither guns nor knives should be permitted.
She contradicted herself because at the end of the article she says, “Ban the damn things.
Ban them all,” but at the beginning of the article she says she is not anti-guns.
Make up your mind Ivins! I think Ivins had a lot of great arguments such as: only well
regulated militia should be permitted to have guns, the owners as well as the gun should be licensed with restricted usage, and if you want protection that badly; then get a dog. Suggesting
substituting guns for knives was her least convincing argument. Whatever the outcome becomes, she is still condoning violence and acknowledging the power to kill because a knife can
also kill someone.
Ivins had a lot of good arguments but I did not agree with the way she made her points. I
think Ivins should have put a little more emphasis on how random innocent people die everyday
because of a gun. The fact that a bullet does not have anyone’s name on it and people die everyday because a gun ended up in the wrong person hand is an argument I would have added to
support Ivins point. Everyday people die from stray bullets - mothers, kids, elderly and who ever
else is in the way because some fool picked up a gun and decided he or she had the power to kill.
This is the best reason to ban guns, so we can stop losing loved ones. I can recall an incident this
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summer when a former classmate of mine three year old son died because he was shot in the face
on accident by his own uncle. That was a shameful and unnecessary death of an innocent boy
because there are no strict laws or banning of guns.
Therefore I do not think there should only be stricter laws on guns; I think guns should be
banned completely. Guns can only do one thing – KILL, so why that should be allowed? The
only people that should be allowed to have a gun are people who form part of a well-regulated
militia such as the Army, Police, National Guard etcetera and that’s only because their job is to
protect and serve. Don’t get me wrong though, they should have licenses and restrictions to a
gun as well. Anyone outside of those walls shouldn’t even be able to look at a gun.