The Pros And Cons Of Semi-Automatic Assault Weapons

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“58 Killed, 546 injured in Las Vegas Shooting by lone gunman”1 screamed the headlines of the New York Times on Oct 1, 2017. The lone gunman was Stephen Paddock who in a matter of ten minutes fired more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition killing and injuring over 600 people1. The fact that Paddock single-handedly wrecked such havoc was totally enabled by the fact that he was shooting using semi-automatic guns. This is just one recent example of the horrific results of a semiautomatic assault weapon when used wrongly. Had Paddock been using a hand pistol, a hunting rifle or a shotgun which needs to be reloaded after every shot or a round of five shots - he would have managed to kill or injure just a handful of people in that same ten minutes.2 So what is a semi-automatic assault weapon and what makes it so deadly? An assault weapon is a gun that has detachable magazines, that can hold as many as 100 rounds of bullets, hence the name semi/or fully automatic.8 This paper analyses some reasons why semi-automatic assault weapons should be banned from public use. Mainly, of their deadly capability to kill many people in a short period of time, also they are not needed for house protection by an average man, and they are not protected by the 2nd amendment in the US Constitution.
Assault weapons should be illegal for public use because of their capability to kill a large number of people in a very short period of time. In the past mass shootings, semi-automatic assault guns were the