Having less guns on the streets should make people safer. Most people believe that would be a reasonable way to protect innocent people from being killed or hurt from someone with a gun. This argument would make perfect sense if everyone was a law abiding citizen. Unfortunately that is not the way the world is. Statistics show that areas that have stricter gun laws, actually have a higher rate of crime involving guns, whereas areas that have less gun laws have less crime involving guns. Even with statistics to prove otherwise people are still more inclined to believe that guns should have more restrictions whenever they hear of a tragedy that involves the use of a gun.
(Counsil) Few topics engender more controversy than “gun control.” Large segments of the population express contradictory opinions and assert contradictory facts when they discuss the role of firearms in violence and especially how to reduce violent injuries and deaths that involve firearms. (Hemenway) It is shameful that tens of thousands of Americans die needlessly from guns each year, while our gun policy is driven more by rhetoric than scientific information.
Gun control debates are mainly based on one’s personal upbringings and experiences. Someone raised in a more rural area and growing up hunting is going to have a different view of gun control laws than someone who grows up in a large city and lives in an apartment. Being able to regulate something as big as the second amendment in a country as large and diverse as the United States is something that cannot be a one law fits all proposition.
Counsil, National Research. "Firearms and Violence." 2005.
Hemenway, David. "Private Guns, Public Health." 2004.
Carter, Gregg Lee and Mildred Vasan, Eds. Gun Control in the United States: A Reference Handbook. Danbury: ABC-CLIO, Incorporated, 2006.
Dizard, Jan E., Robert M. Muth and Stephen P. Andrews, Eds. Guns