An Argument Against Gun Control Essay

In areas where crime is high, guns can keep law-abiding citizens safe. As stated by

Every day 297 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings, and police intervention. Everyday 89 people die from gun violence, 31 of those people are murdered. Today I'm going to be talking about the social justice issue of gun violence. Gun violence, death and injury from firearms is a major issue in all parts of our world. Gun violence continues to affect young people, lower-income people, and communities of color. This social justice and public health issue occurs in places all over the world, however it has become such an epidemic in the United States that it will result in gun violence being one of the main topics in the 2016 presidential election. There are many causes for gun violence, for example, in this day and age pop culture influence is the greatest cause of gun violence. Guns have also became more accessible and easy to obtain. Poor identification and treatment of mentally ill people is another significant cause for gun violence.

(Lott 12) in the United States there are 80,000 to 82,000 defensive uses of guns during assaults, robberies and household burglaries. Out of the 1,000,000 times guns are used for defensive reasons in the world 400,000 of theses cases have saved lives or prevented lives from being taken. (Lott 2) The use of guns by law-abiding citizens may create a positive externality for others. Therefore, when a person is going to commit a unlawful act on someone they might be reluctant because they have no way of telling if they are carrying a weapon or not. Our country is very restrictive when granting the public to own or carry guns. Therefore, our government came up with the "Shall Issue" law, which prevents anyone to own, or posses guns that have a record of criminal injustices or a record of mental illness.

National Crime Victimization Survey data,”robbery and assault victims who used gun to resist were less likely to be attacked”. John Lott, PhD,and David Mustard. PhD, which claim “more guns equal less crime”. This shows that you don't even need to harm someone to protect yourself .

It is very important to notice that the matter of regulation, first of all, refers to concealed guns. Lott (2013) states that the problem of allowing concealed handguns--but not openly carried handguns--is based on the argument that “when guns are concealed, criminals are unable to tell whether the victim is armed before striking, which raises the risk to criminals of committing many types of crimes.” The author also speculates that, on the other hand, when “open-carry” handgun laws are adopted, the defensive ability of a potential victim is immediately identified by the criminals, which makes it easier for them to choose the most vulnerable target (Lott, 2013, p. 6).

McMahan states that if gun ownership had the robust deterrent effects that supporters claim, we should expect the United States to have less crime than other developed societies, but he cites that the per capita homicide rates in the United States are higher than homicide rates in other Western countries. McMahan proposes that guns and their regulation will not be comparable to the attempted regulation of alcohol and drugs in the United States. He positions the use or desire to use alcohol and drugs does not depend on others, it is an internal desire. Contrarily, the desire to own a gun was positioned as being dependent on the actions of others. Despite all of this McMahan himself admits that a law prohibiting gun ownership could not be enforced with complete effectiveness, leaving the unarmed at the mercy of criminals who will always be armed. This results in the argument of self-defense and according to McMahan, the right of self-defense is derived from a more fundamental right, which he fails to elaborate on by instead stating that he believes the gun prohibition he proposes would eliminate only one effective means of self-defense.

There have been many times where people in stores, at house and even in the streets have done self protection with the usage of guns. 9 out of 10 times a criminal is going to flee the place if he or she notices that person with a gun. A victim of rape, Kimberly Corban, ask Obama in a press conference of how she is suppose to protect herself and her children if another accident happens. Another example of how owning firearms are a key part of self protection is how they can can scare people off that put you in danger. A man from Texas, James Gerow, woke up hearing an intruder in his house. He quickly walked out of his room noticing a man wearing a dark hoodie how shouldnt have been in his house. James grabbed his gun and chased the man outside where the cops have arrived and took the criminal to the nearest prison available. Therefore, many people use guns to protect themselves. James used the gun for self protection and he did not shoot at the intruder. This means if the usage of guns is taken away from the people that live in the United States how are they suppose to protect

The problem with statements like the above is that people are forgetting about the black market. If a person is planning on buying a handgun for criminal purposes, he is not likely to buy it through a dealer. If he buys a gun through a dealer, the gun has to be registered in that person’s name. If the gun is used in any crime or murder where a shot is fired and the gun is left behind, the police could very easily trace the gun to that person.

make it impossible to buy guns and would only allow hunters to “rent” guns. By doing

There have also been references to second amendment that it states that the ownership of handguns rights are not protected, and that it should be easy to make a law to ban them(Roleff, 82). Another person also says that stricter laws on gun control is needed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of other citizens of the United States(Roleff, 144). Handgun control inc. also supports tough and stricter gun laws and states “waiting periods will reduce the number of criminals who obtain handguns”(Roleff, 153).

Taking guns away is not going to solve any problems with gun violence. If criminals want a gun they will find a way around the ban and buy a firearm illegally. Taking firearms away would violate our second amendment rights taking away the ability to defend your home and your family.

The idea of completely outlawing handguns does not solve the problem of handgun violence. In fact, this idea would persuade some people to defy the law and keep their gun or guns for safety or for malicious intentions. One in five Americans own a handgun ("Guns In America"). The chances that all of these people will give up their guns, when they could hide them and likely never get caught, is very slim. The idea of completely outlawing handguns is a tactic

Looking at data over a seventeen year time period (1992 through 2005 and 2007 through 2011), there were over 192 million violent crimes committed in the United States. Of those crimes, the victims chose to use a gun as a self-defensive measure to threaten or attack their offender over 1.3 million times. Over this time period, a gun was used as a form of self-defense to threaten or attack an offender 0.7% of the time. Of those 0.7% that used a gun, 0.3% resulted in a justifiable homicide of the offender.

A law-abiding citizen who owns a gun in their house or is a concealed carrier has a better chance of surviving an attack or avoiding being assaulted because the gun becomes an equalizer between the criminal and the citizen. According to Gun Owners of America “Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.” This statistic is just one of the many examples of crime rates actually going down when people have weapons. Women carrying a concealed weapon and being trained properly on how to use a

With a firearm, one could be in a position to protect on self in case he/she has been attacked. Research shows that about 55% of criminals or attackers retreat when the attacker has a gun at hand. Another study also shows that in an event of an attack, those that used guns to resist the attacks were less likely to get injured unlike those who used their hands, canes or a baseball bat for example. With a firearm, one could also protect a group of people, for example, his/her family from an attack. This is also evident from the book ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ by John R. Lott where he argues out that if the number of firearms (concealed-hand-gun) permits is increased, the rate of violent crime would be reduced. He goes on and offers two theoretical rationales; the concept of deterrence and the substitution