Gun Control

Rawlins
Honors English 10
May 6, 2014
The Unrealistic Cause of Gun Control In 1791 the second amendment to the constitution was ratified and it stated that a “well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed” (Lee no.pag.). Since its ratification, many debates over the meaning and over gun control have spread throughout America. The term gun control, as described by Lee, is, “any action taken by the federal government or by state or local government to regulate, through legislation, the sale, purchase, safety, and use of handguns and other types of firearms by individual citizens” (n.pag.).While many advocates of gun control scream for tighter measures, those opposed point to logic and statistics as an argument. In hindsight, the goals of gun control and unrealistic and efforts should be focused on gun crimes being currently committed and curbing gun culture and allowance of practical uses of guns self defense purposes. While gun control has always been a hot topic, recent shooting have pushed it further in to the public eye, making it a regular topic of discussion. Many people are screaming for tighter measures to help get guns off the streets. Devastating shootings such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary all took many lives and caused for the call of tighter gun control (Stingl n.pag.). The Brady Center was created to help promote gun control legislation. The programs stance on guns include the claims that “certain classes of guns should not be legal for private ownership, that guns in the home are more often used in accidental shootings, suicides, or criminal activity than in acts of self defense, and that gun violence strains the US economy and health system” (Lee n.pag.). The Brady Center supports more gun control legislation, as do many advocates. The fact is that we live in a violent culture, prime time television, many movies, and most console games have some form of violence, usually involving guns. Until this culture is curbed there will always be gun crime. Children are introduced to this harsh reality from the time they are young, instilling it in their brains. Violence, such a rape and murder, should be banned from television and forms of media, to help instill the idea of the severity of these acts. Furthermore, Wilson put it best in that tightening gun control measures is based on the assumption that criminals, who by definition break the law, will suddenly have a desire to act in accordance with it and give up their weapons (n.pag). According to Wilson, we should be prosecuting gun crimes that are already happening, so aggressively that it makes criminals fear breaking them (n.pag.). A study of 272,111 felons release from state prisons found that they committed 2,871 new gun related homicides with guns obtained illegally. Of these criminals that were arrested for a firearm related assault, at least 21.6% were arrested a second time for a new violent offense (Gun Control-Just Facts n.pag.). The trend we are seeing is that criminals can get firearms whenever ever they want, and they are not afraid to use it as a mean to obtain their desires. By strengthening our enforcement of laws, the government could decrease the number of criminal activity. This would happen purely because criminals would learn to more fear persecution from their wrong doings. Self defense accounts for the majority of reasons that citizens bear arms in the US. Nearly 67 percent of people who own firearms state they own them solely for self defense purposes. 34 percent of felons had been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim (Gun Control-Just Control n.pag.). Sommers points out that the police cannot possibly be everywhere at once, and protecting yourself, family, and possessions is the right and duty of every American citizen. Furthermore, criminals are scared of guns. Many statistics show they are less likely to attack, rob, rape, or assault someone that is know and suspected to have a gun (n.pag.). In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms.. disarm only those who are neither inclined or determine to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage rather than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” In the end the realization must hit that fun control laws only affect law abiding citizens. Criminals can get a firearm illegally off the street with very little problem. The University of Chicago’s John Lott did a fifteen year study of FBI statistics. He concluded that relaxed gun laws led to a decline in crime. He hypothesized that when people are unsure who is armed and who is not, they are less likely to commit a crime for fear of retaliation (Wilson n.pag.). The right to bear arms is a very complicated matter, considering the power it is quite literally a matter of life and death. It is also know that the United States has one of the most serious gun problems in the world with the number of homicides and violence that occurs. With all of this is mind, gun control opponents point to logic and statistics to prove why laid back laws are for the better of the general public. The right to bear arms is a fundamental right of the American people and is a part of our culture and history. It is the right of citizens to be able to protect themselves and the ones the loved, as well as use them for recreational and hunting purposes. In the end it should be accepted that curbing gun culture and promoting self defense use of arms in the direction this country should be heading towards.