Do We Need Gun Control: Good Or Bad?

Guns have numerous uses besides killing your fellow man. Hunting is a big reason to own a weapon. Across the country, people hunt game; small and big. Some people might see this as a cruel act, but in most states the White Tailed Dear is amazingly overpopulated. Not many complain when you kill a cow to eat a hamburger, so it shouldn't be an issue to go hunting. People also enjoy shooting guns at targets. You can do long range sniping with rifles, shoot clay pigeons in the air with shot guns, or shoot targets with a hand gun. Each hobby is completely harmless, and enjoyable. Along with the recreational activities that firearms make possible, there is self defense. Let's face it - if you're in your home at night with an intruder in the house, who will act faster, 911 or a firearm in the hands of a trained user? The answer is obvious. In an emergency situation, a firearm is almost an essential. One might argue that the odds of you being held up in your own house are slim; well so are the odds of a gun related death. If a gun user is properly trained, a gun can and would protect people in case of an emergency.

About sixty percent of people in the U.S own guns, the estimated number of guns legally owned by civilians is 270,000,000 to 310,000,000 (FBI), and that’s not counting all the illegally owned firearms. When asked why they need guns, most Americans say that its part of their rights and amendments, to protect themselves and their family. If most people with guns just want to protect themselves, why do so many people die every year from gun violence? The answer is all the illegal firearms that land in the hands of criminals and psychopaths.

Guns have helped in our lives, but have also caused many unnecessary deaths. 95% of gun related deaths are homicides and suicides, it would be more effort to kill someone or kill yourself without a gun. So, without guns, some people wouldn’t have done the work to do one of the two, therefore not going through with a death of some sort. Access to bigger mags and automatic weapons are also a cause of many deaths.

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

Four out of every ten Americans own a gun; which leads to the perception that America has returned to the Wild Wild West. In fact, it is to be assumed that where guns are present, there is a higher risk of drug abuse, crime, and accidents. About 31,224 people died from gun violence in 2007. In just one day, 268 people were shot

The problem with guns is fairly obvious: they decrease the difficulty of killing or injuring a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994), he points out the obvious dangers. About 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. Firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985, the cost of shootings was an estimated $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed.

Firearm is the twelfth cause of deaths. Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happened there has been over one hundred and twelve school shooting. In my opinion people who want to ave guns should just get a small pistol because you don't need a big automatic gun to protect yourself. And the same for hunting you don't need the biggest and the baddest gun to shoot a frecking duck,deer,or even a buck down.Kids die ever year for just playing with a gun. And another reason for not having a gun is because if you notice signs are just know your son or daughter is a depressed put the gun where they cannot reach it because sixty two percent of firearm deaths in the United States are suicides.

In a survey study, it is shown that 48% of people who owns a gun purchased them for their own security (Pew Research Center) and 57% of Americans said that owning firearms was beneficial for them from becoming victims of a crime (Williams). There are responsible owners of guns who used them to protect their loved ones such as Melinda Herman in Loganville, Georgia who protected her two children during a home invasion when she grabbed her handgun and used it protect her son and daughter after a burglar broken into the home (Brumback). Herman was alone with her children and her husband was away from the home and Herman utilized lessons she learned from a firing range session and wounded the burglar in her home with several bullet rounds and the police later arrived and arrested the man after he escaped elsewhere (Brumback). In addition, another case would be that of Ronald Dixon, a Navy veteran with 2 jobs and a father who protected his 2 children and girlfriend in Canarsie, Brooklyn after a man broke into their home during a home invasion (Haberman). Dixon shot and wounded the intruder, who is a thug with a very big record of burglaries and other crimes, and was later arrested at the scene of the crime (Haberman). Not only are guns necessary for home protection, but also in the general public as well. During a

Currently, it is very easy for anyone to get their hands on a gun. If the laws and regulations were made to be stricter, the amount of people who die due to gun violence could potentially and would most likely decrease. If someone needs a gun fast and wants to do something illegal with it, they are not going to wait a long time or want to have to go through a long process. Guns are also rarely used for self defense. Every year there are over thousands of assaults however less than one percent of these cases end up being self defense. Many people want to own a gun to feel safe and for self defense however they end up being used for crimes. Being able to buy things such as fast shooting guns and silencers make it very easy for someone to commit large shootings. If gun control was more strict, these mass shootings could be more easily avoided. A large percentage of suicides in the U.S. are done with guns that are legally bought. If the waiting period and process for

Guns save more lives than they actually take.They are used 2.5 million times a year for self defense. They are also used 80 times more to protect lives of citizens than to actually take them. According to an article I read there was a woman named Alex who was pregnant and home alone and two men were trying to break into her house. She said her husband just recently taught her how to use the gun and she was grateful for that because when they broke in and saw that she was armed they quickly ran out of the house and were soon arrested. Also 200,000 women a year use a gun to defend themselves against sexual

In 2001, 12,102 murders were caused by gun violence, 17,424 suicides from guns, 366 people died to accidents involving guns, 316 deaths by guns had unknown reasons, and only 154 were confirmed to be in self-defense. 30,708 deaths from guns in total, and only 154 out of 30,708 deaths were self defense. Those statistics are alarming. Guns are not being used with the intent to defend yourself. Guns are being used in today's society for celebration, murders, for sport and gang activity. Guns are used for war, by the police force and on drill teams. Guns should not be used in such instances where citizens can harm and even kill others . They should only be utilized to protect their loved ones, themselves and their valuables, not used as tools of murder, suicide and gang activity.

Switzerland, in 2007 was ranked 3th in international gun ownership rates with 45.7 guns per 100 people and in 2009 they had only 24 gun homicide & 253 gun suicides. Finland was ranked 4th and 45.3 person had guns out of 100 and in 2007 they only had 23 homicide and 172 gun suicides. While in the United States 88.8 out of 100 people had guns in 2007 and had 12,632 gun homicides and 17,352 gun suicides. Just the fact that almost 89 people out of 100 have guns , is very because the presence of a gun can turn something fatal. So many people having guns , pick up the chance of them getting a gun stolen. Between 2005 and 2010, 1.4 millions guns were stolen from US homes during property crimes. Another bad thing about so many people having guns is that there will be more suicides. Between 1999 and 2013 there were about 270,000 firearms suicides. Most people that would want to commit suicide would not kill him/herself with poison or with a knife when a gun is unavailable. So less people having guns could reduce suicides rates.

Somewhere around the world somebody just got shot. Somewhere else somebody just got stabbed to death. Some people would have been affected more by the death by gun because a decent amount around the world dump a lot of hatred towards guns and gun owners. It seems that guns have always received the most attention and concern from citizens, for years. They have been either hated or loved by the citizens of the United States since before the colonial days. They are not a bad mechanism for people to use; they are just, occasionally, misused or put into the wrong hands, that is how it is with every weapon. Many Americans, actually, honor this tool and have for centuries because guns are quite a big part of American history. It was a big enough part of history for the Founding Fathers of America to include it in one of the original ten Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, a part of the nation misuse the right given to citizens from the Second Amendment for things like murder. This has caused a good amount of people to believe gun use is the cause of the majority of deaths and the basis of crime, but these beliefs have been proven not true from various collections of studies and data. Guns are not as bad as they seem, and they should not be taken away or restricted harshly because they were trusted by the Founding Fathers of the United States and protected by the Second Amendment, are not one of the leading causes of all deaths and crimes in America, and taking them away will just stir

Guns are created to kill. They have been used in many mass shootings and in overwhelming cases, in school shootings. The crowdedness of school campuses make them lethal. It is also no secret that the United States is the wild west when it comes to guns. According to Samantha Gupta from the Harvard Political Review, “American civilians own an astounding 270 million guns, more than the civilians of the 21 other countries that had school shootings own combined.” That is enough guns to give 84% of the population one each. This is caused by lax gun control laws and the loopholes that exist within them. The failure of the US government to implement universal background checks and bans on certain types of guns and ammunitions have allowed potentially dangerous people access to lethal weapons. And these people wreak havoc. From Gupta again, “Out of all these countries that have experienced a school shooting in the given time period, the average number of school shootings per firearm per capita is 0.111; America’s average is over five times higher.”

Gun violence has been on the rise for many years and there seems to be no solution. People feel more protected with guns in their home, but actually this increases their risk to be in harm’s way of being hurt or killed because of the gun. The majority of gun ownership is owned by civilians “75 percent of the world’s 875 million guns are civilian controlled”(Gun Violence). People also feel more protected when they carry a gun on their person but this also increases their risk of being harmed “Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun" and that "his odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater when armed”(Gun Violence). If people knew that it increases their risk of being killed then not very many people will carry a gun around.