2. How Military Guns Make the Civilian Market

            Matt Valentine, a contributor to The Atlantic, wrote an article about military guns making it in the civilian market. After almost 30 years of using the same handgun, the Beretta M9, the U.S. Army is making new design requirements for the standard-issue handguns. However, last time they changed to a better handgun, it also ended up outside of the battlefield, and the intenseness of civilian shootings increased. Daniel Webster from John Hopkins University was studying gunshot injuries, and he noticed that as time went on, more and more patients were being shot with multiple bullets. In 1983, about ¼ of the patients were shot multiple times, however, after 2 years the number increased by 43%. In the same time, semiautomatic pistols were replacing six shot revolvers. In 1980, the Army made very specific requirements for a handgun to use in the battlefield, which was practically impossible to find in an off-the-shelf pistol. They made many trials with the new gun, and made changes on it throughout them. By 1985, the Amy had requested 300,000 of this new handgun. An Italian man called Beretta was hired to make these, but he made an almost identical model for civilians, called Model 92FS. It wasn’t the first semiautomatic that was available to civilians, but it was the most used one: by 1991, 74% of all handguns made in America were semiautomatics. In 1993, annual gun deaths increased exponentially. As everything else, guns will get better as time goes on, and people wonder if the Army will use some form of smart gun, allowing only certain people to use it. However, critics say smart guns are not worth it, too expensive and complex, and not always reliable. People are still not sure which type of gun the Army will decide on, but Valentine says that when they do, we can expect to find an almost identical one in a gun shop near us.

            This article is mostly informative, however in the end Valentine gives his opinion as well. He tells of guns in the Army, how they were in the past and how gun availability for civilians evolved throughout the years. He gives background information about gun manufacturers and how they make practically identical copies of the Army’s guns available to civilians. He uses statistics to prove his point and make it easier for the audience to believe him. He also uses other people's opinions to prove his point. Despite using mostly facts to make his article, in the end, he states his opinion, which is that there will probably be a similar gun available to civilians as the one the Army makes.  Overall, the article was mostly informative, but not too formal, which kept the reader interested in what he had to say.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/how-military-guns-make-the-civilian-market/375123/