Correlation Between Guns And Crime

Guns and crime. These two seem to correlate hand in hand with one another, but are they really associated in anyway? Do guns lead to crime? These are the questions citizens and lawmakers have to ask themselves when creating gun laws or restrictions. The debate over gun control is not a new topic it has been going on for a very long time and continues to go on today. Some are against bearing arms and call for reforms and bans on firearms; there are great uses for guns such as self-defense, recreational activities, and even chances to earn scholarships to pay for college.
Looser gun laws decrease the chances of a burglary. Mr. Kleck a respected researcher for The University of Indiana studied crime rates from Great Britain and the Netherlands
— two nations with much stricter gun ownership laws than the U.S.
— and concluded that the risk of armed robbery is lower in America because of loose gun laws. :“The rate of burglaries at occupied homes (“hot” burglaries) in Great Britain and the Netherlands is 45%, compared to a rate of 13% in the U.S. Comparing those rates to the percentage of hot burglaries in which the homeowner is threatened or attacked (30%), Kleck concluded that there would be an additional 450,000 burglaries in the U.S. in which homeowners are threatened or attacked if the rate of hot burglaries in the U.S. was similar to the rate in Great Britain. The lower rate in the U.S. is attributed to widespread gun ownership”(Platt, Par.4). What these statistics are communicating is that burglars are more prone to burglarizing a house where they know that the owner will not have a firearm so they feel more secure in burglarizing that home. In America ,however, there are looser gun laws so more homeowners have guns deterring burglars. With stricter gun laws, Mr. Kleck concludes that there would be 450,000 additional burglaries in America if firearm bans would be taken into effect. A Wright-Rossi survey found some very interesting statistics “According to the Wright-Rossi survey, 34% of the felons responding from state prisons said that they had been
“scared off, shot at, wounded or captured” by a victim armed with a firearm. The same percentage said they worried about being fired upon by armed victims, while 57% said they were more concerned with encountering an armed victim than encountering law enforcement officers”(Platt, Par.6). These statistics prove that burglars are afraid of encountering armed homeowners, which decreases the number of burglaries. Some people might argue that if there were gun laws and restrictions it would drastically decrease the number of guns in circulation and there would be fewer robberies. Even with gun laws there would still be tons of guns in circulation “Currently, there are 88 guns for every 100 people living in the United States