Guns or Lives

Lisa Mansi

Dr. Angiolini

English 101

September 22, 2011

Guns or Lives

The day a man named Geoffrey La Gioia applied to get a permit to open a gun store in a small village community called Morton Grove; he also opened a can of chaos. That exact day started something that would be talked about in books, and maybe even in schools.

The year was 1981; it was two weeks after Pope John Paul II was shot in Saint Peter's Square. Geoffrey La Gioia applied to get a permit to open a gun store in a small but local shopping center. The people in the neighborhood didn't like the idea of this gun store, and planned on giving him a hard time.

One reason is that the store would be located where children could watch people purchase guns. Another reason is that the villages people were scared that someone could break in the store have access to a load of guns. The thought of children being around guns or having the desire to use a weapon could be detrimental to our children's future. Neil Cashman, the village's trustee and father of nine children and Martin Ashman the village's attorney decided they would attempt to stop the opening of this gun store in a legal way.

Ashman wrote up a proposal banning the sale of guns. As the trustees met in the chambers on a Monday morning to decide the outcome of the proposal; Ashman threw in the suggestion that Neil Cashman wanted to add the ban of possession of handguns.Their decision was to hold a public hearing, so people can state their views. Greg Youstra one of Morton Grove's trustees and gun owner was the last vote; at one thirty in the morning and a tally of votes four to two Morton grove became the first town in the United States to ban the sale of guns and the right to bear arms in your home. Neil Cashman says "I hope we saved a couple lives." (pg.90)

In spite of what Cashman said I personally do not believe that the possession of handguns in your home should be prohibited. As stated in the article " to keep and bear arms means precisely what it says: to keep arms in one's home and to bear them in self-defense, or in defense of the state." (pg.97) I agree.

In conclusion if people didn't have firearms of access to guns, we would probably have a lower crime rate. On the other hand I would like to state the guns don't kill people; people kill people. Firearms are a form of security