I would see if you can drum up statistics and quote your sources - I think your teacher would eat that up. If could find statistics that show, say X % of all fatalities are without a helmet and X% are attributed to alcohol, you have your statements backed up and look more credible.

 

I was planning on adding all that type of info into i later once i find enough....the problem is that i'm having trouble finding the statistics to back up my facts. So if anyone know where i can find this info could you let me know or post a link to websites that may be able to help me?

Thanks
Jonesy

 

First and formeost you are writing a great essay. You may want to tie in how ATVing is also a family sport and a great way to vacation as a family. Showing family values goes a long way. THere are plenty of riders who give the sport a bad name, but even more who use ATVing to bring families together. Every 4th of July we have over 20 people in our family that ride spanning 3 generations. WE make a week long family trip out of it and it is great (or at least it was until my cousin got a banshee and I am no longer the fastest but I'm working on that) Good luck and let us no how you make out on the grade.

 

Google is your friend.

CDC stuff, eg. Just use something like "atv safety statistics" as your search terms and start a' reading.

This has some of the types of stats I suggested: http://www.state.me.us/ifw/aboutus/a...vaccidents.htm

 

First and last paragraph, you refer to atvs being safe if properly educated and clothed. I suspect that you are refering to the operators being educated and clothed. That fuzzy little detail should be the heart of your report. Make it clear that safety is primarily an operational issue. ATVs don't cause crashes - riders do!

 

... right now i'm doing a research paper on gun control, if anyone would be interested at all, i can make a thread on it, seeing that we have one paper on here for people to read... lol..... lemme know !

 

hey guys... figured i might as well add my paper to it.... here it is... like jonesy300, any comments or suggestions would be awesome

Gun Control—A necessity?
Gun control. Those two words alone are so extremely powerful that many Americans try to avoid the issue altogether. In my personal experiences, I have found that when questioned about the issue, many just say, “I think guns are bad,” or “Everyone should own a gun.” If they are asked to explain why, they may say something like, “Why do I need to give you a reason?” and leave it at that. It is a sensitive issue, and many people don’t want to talk about it any more than they need to. In fact, I don’t blame them, because there are other Americans who are either die-hard advocates of gun control, or the opposite. It seems that if you are an advocate of gun control, and they are an opponent of it, they will not talk with you about anything. That is how sensitive this topic is, and so I have decided not to write about just one side of the issue, but to write about each, and then draw my own conclusions from my findings. It is a certainty that this controversial issue will continue to divide our country for years to come.
In America, there are thousands of pro gun control advocates. They believe that guns should be banned, and that once this is done, crime rates will be drastically reduced all over the country. The leading gun control group is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence formerly known as Handgun Control. Perhaps you have heard of the Brady Bill. This bill was signed into law on November 30, 1993 after a seven-year battle. This was a huge victory for the “anti-gunners”. The law required a five-day waiting period and background checks on all handgun purchases. The purpose for this was to keep handguns out of the hands of criminals. When the potential buyer went to purchase the firearm, they wouldn’t be able to get it right away, thanks to the waiting period. Now, if the criminal was planning to use the handgun in a robbery or other crime, he or she couldn’t do that, because he or she couldn’t get the gun to commit the crime with. In addition, if they were lucky, the crook would have a warrant out for his arrest, and that would show up in a background check. If it did, then officers could be called to arrest the person.
The Brady Campaign also helped the Violent Crime and Control Act of 1994 succeed. This law included the first federal “assault weapons” ban. Again, this was another victory for the gun control advocates. This left the gun industry scrambling to gain their footing, eventually challenging California’s assault weapons ban. However, this challenge was rejected by the Supreme Court.
Another driving force behind gun control is the Million Mom March. In the year 2000, more than 750,000 people marched on Washington D.C. and demanded more strict gun control laws. MMM, as it is also known, wants CAP (Child Access Protection) laws to try to keep firearms out of reach of children, licensing and registration for gun buyers, and to strengthen the assault weapons ban.
There are also many people against gun control. The NRA (National Rifle Association) is by far the largest organization that feels this way about gun control. It was founded in 1871, and since then, their focus has turned from the shooting sports to defending the second amendment. They believe that everyone has a right to own and keep a firearm in their possession. Their opinion says that the second amendment states that the “militia” is the public, rather than an organized militia. This, if you wanted to stretch it far enough, would mean that it is almost a person’s duty to own a firearm as a citizen of this country. However, most Americans do not picture it in this way, and simply say that it is a right, not a requirement. Also, William F. Buckley, Jr. makes a good point when he says, “The central idea of the Bill of Rights is that Congress may not do certain things, having to do with religion, free speech, the right to assemble, the right to protest—and the right to keep and bear arms.” (Buckley, Jr. 2-3) I could not have said it any better myself!
There are people that aren’t strongly pro or anti gun control that say that it is common sense that banning certain firearms will do nothing to stop crime. The reason for this is quite simple. Why would a criminal ever bother to, even if there were no gun control laws, go down to a gun shop to buy a pistol for $300 when he could just break another law by buy it illegally off of someone on the street? After all, why would he be bothered by breaking another law when he is planning to do that in the first place? Obviously, they say, this will do nothing but take away the guns of law-abiding citizens, who have done nothing but exercise their second amendment right. If anything, it will make crime rates rise because of the simple fact that the criminal knows that their victim will not be able to defend him or herself, and this will help them in committing their crime with ease, with no, or considerably less, resistance.
In addition, people against gun control say that an “assault rifle” will kill someone just as easily as a “sporting rifle”. Why, then, are these assault rifles, which are targeted by lawmakers who say that they were built to kill, have no useful purpose whatsoever, etc. targeted more than the sporting rifles? The answer of the so called “gun nuts” is that this idea is easier to sell to the ordinary citizen who has no knowledge of firearms, and that the potentially intimidating looks of the weapon make it easier for politicians to contort facts about how they are used. So, they ask, if an AR-15 chambered for .223 is extremely dangerous to the public and should be banned, why are the politicians lobbying for this ban not also calling for that Remington deer rifle, also chambered for .223, sitting right next to the AR-15, to be included in the ban? This question seems to often go unanswered when asked. Many people wonder why people want more gun control laws for the same reason as Woody West states here:
With gun control, however, there literally are thousands of restrictive laws on various U.S. statute books, and yet the cry constantly is for more legislation. It’s a sure indication of how futile laws can be when, on a given issue, more and more statutes on the same issue are passed to try to find a workable equation, and yet nothing changes.
To many, this and other quotes like it make perfect sense, but to others it just shows the need for more laws, so that we can find that “workable equation”. The question of whether or not it exists will find you swimming in an ocean of answers and opinions. However, if you ask me for an answer, I will ask how a perfect gun control law that makes everyone except the criminals happy could possibly exist.
Maybe something other than controlling what guns are legal and regulating what can be bought and sold, and how this is done, is the real problem. Dare I say it could be something other than the guns that are at fault for committing the crimes? For example, if someone is determined to do something such as murder someone else, or rob somebody, they will likely go to any means possible to achieve their goal. Even if we were able to come up with the perfect gun control law, which successfully rids America of all guns and somehow prevents illegal manufacture of firearms, they would probably just grab a knife out of the kitchen and proceed with the crime.
My personal opinion is that it is certainly an upsetting, shocking, and even appalling fact that people would want to hurt one another by using firearms, or any other weapon for that matter. Still, there is another fact that remains: there is no feasible way to successfully get rid of firearms entirely; there will always be guns in some way, shape, and form. Even if, and this is quite a stretch, the government were somehow able to collect all of the rifles, shotguns, and handguns in this nation, people would soon figure out how to build firearms out of regular household materials and other readily available products. However, Woody West makes a good point when he said, “Guns historically are an intimate part of our culture. This might change in decades to come as we become ever more thickly urban and as hunters become not your next-door neighbor but more a curiosity.” (West 2) I think that he may be correct in that our need for firearms may diminish in the future.
To actually rid the country of guns would mean to essentially imprison everyone in the country, to monitor their activities to be sure that there was no manufacture of firearms at all. This, of course, will never happen, so we can safely say that guns are here to stay, so we might as well find another way to deal with the thousands of gun related deaths occurring every year. I think that there are many other contributing factors to this problem, such as what the media decides to cover. Maybe if they didn’t put so much fear into people by covering primarily homicides and other violent crimes, people wouldn’t have those things on their minds as often as they do, and as a result wouldn’t think of violence as a quick and easy solution to a problem. Some people think that violent video games are to blame, but I must disagree with their opinion. Video games, although depicting violence on a somewhat large scale, are commonly known as unrealistic, as a game, which is what they are. What people see on the news, however, is very real. This, I think, is where people see what happens, and think to themselves, “If they can do that to someone, why can’t I?” and then when they aren’t able to come up with an answer, go ahead and commit that crime.
Gun control is so tremendously controversial that many people just avoid it. people who have opinions on the subject are generally unwavering in their opinion, and it almost seems impossible to change their this, unless they see something from a different perspective. Still then, it seems unattainable to accomplish. People with opinions on gun control will almost always have their opinion, and that by far is the greatest reason that this country will be divided over the issue for as long as one could possibly imagine. It is things like this that make many other things in life seem infinitesimal in comparison.

 

ineedtoride - a decent overall discussion of the issue. couple of details that you may want to look at again: the title "gun control - a necessity?" isn't exactly what you wrote about. just "gun control" would be closer to the mark. 1st para last sen - delete, it restates your conclusion. 2nd para 1st sen - "pro gun control advocates" should be just "gun control advocates" or "pro gun control people". A successful essay of this nature has three parts - intro, body, conclusion. your intro and the body of your report work pretty well. your conclusion is a bit weak and not well defined, work on it some more.

 

yeah, i thought the conclusion was kinda weak too. thanks

 

I am an ATV instructor. I will see if I can dig up some facts for you.