1) Is gun violence a significant problem in the United States?
2) At two o’clock in the morning on March 1, 2026, three people were killed, including two students from the University of Texas at Austin, and fifteen others critically injured, in a mass shooting at Buford's Backyard Beer Garden in Austin, Texas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 120 people are killed with guns every day in the United States. According to the CDC, firearms are the leading cause of death for American juveniles. Research shows access to a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide death by three hundred percent.
3) Title 18 U.S.C., § 921(a)(3) defines “Firearm” to mean: “Any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects the right to keep and bear arms:“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
4) In 2025, the Gun Violence Archive reports there were 408 mass shootings in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were injured or killed. The year before, in 2024, there were 504 mass shootings, and at its peak in 2021, there were 689 in the United States.
5) In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), the United States Supreme Court rules the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States protect an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.
7 pages total, NOT including title and works cited pages.