Essay Gun Control Does Not Reduce Crime

I don’t particularly know where my hatred for guns stems from. For as long as I could remember, I always hated guns, I had never understood nor comprehended the purpose of them. Guns do not belong in the hands of civilians; guns should be for military and hunting purposes solely. They are very dangerous weapons. This was evident in the article “America 's gun problem, explained” by German Lopez. I could not agree more with many of the statements and arguments proposed in the article. One particular argument resonated with me, Lopez made the argument that “More guns mean more gun deaths. Period.” He proposed several data to show that research supports the idea that more guns means more gun death in the United States. The chart from Mother Jones demonstrates that when observing gun ownership and gun deaths state-by-state, you observe a positive relationship between the two variables. High gun ownership rates correlates with increases in gun deaths. Another research by the Harvard School of Public Health 's Injury Control Research Center found that when controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, areas with more guns have more gun deaths. These evident

Statistical analysis about states in the U.S. proves the correlation between strict gun control policies and deaths related to firearms to the least extent. According to an article published by Richard Florida on CityLab, a research shows that states with stricter gun control have fewer gun-related fatalities. The study in the article was conducted by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health. Researchers measured “legislative strength” of gun control policies in each state using data from Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Specifically, the elements that the researchers include when accounting for “legislative strength” are:

Illinois has a higher crime rate than New York. That’s interesting knowing that the gun laws in Illinois should limit this crime rate. Gun laws in Illinois are helping crime rates increase because other states are less crime ridden, Illinois gun laws are tough, and other states are benefiting from easy gun laws.

"In October 1997, a 16-year old in Pearl, Mississippi, first killed his mother and then went to school and shot nine students, two fatally; in December 1997 a 14-year old went to his school in West Paducah, Kentucky, killed three students and wounded five others; in March last year, two boys, aged eleven and thirteen, killed four girls and a teacher outside their school in Jonesboro, Arkansas; the next month a science teacher was shot dead, allegedly by a 14-year old, at a school dance in Edinsboro, Pennsylvania; last May in Fayetteville, Tennessee, an 18-year old student allegedly shot dead a classmate in the school car park; two days later, in Springfield, Oregon, a 15-year old opened fire at his high school, killing two

Current Gun Control regulations do not deter violence and crime. It has been shown that places that have relaxed their gun control laws have a higher crime and death rate. Data proves that homicide rates “[...] among the metro areas whose principal city is in a state that requires some form of permit to purchase a gun, is 4.32 per 100,000 residents, compared with 5.74 among cities in no-permit states”(Bailey). This is evidence that there is a correlation between gun control and death rates. It is also proven with statistical evidence that places with the least amount of gun control have the most violence. Statistics show that “‘none of the states with the most gun violence require permits to purchase rifles, shotguns, or handguns. Gun owners are also not required to register

One of the main topics of debate is whether or not gun laws actually correspond with lower murder rates. “The average annual gun death rate ranged from almost 3 per 100,000 in Hawaii to 18 per 100,000 in Louisiana. Hawaii had 16 gun laws, and along with New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts was among states with the most laws and fewest deaths. States with the fewest laws and most deaths included Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma.” (CBSnews.com). These statistics can lead one to believe that more gun laws equate to lower death rates. What these numbers prove is that some gun regulations help lower death rates. However, what gun control activists would have you believe that a full on gun ban would lower these numbers more. This is not the case as evident in the following, “During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower” (James D.

1). The researchers then ranked all 50 states from 0 to 28 based on their score (ProCon para. 2). “The higher the score, the more restrictive the gun laws in that state,” stated the researchers (ProCon para. 2). “This study is a very important addition to our understanding of the connection between gun control and gun violence,” said John Roman, a PhD, senior fellow. “In addition to the general relationship between gun safety laws firearm deaths, also suggests that increasing the number of gun safety laws increases the reductions in firearm related deaths. So the benefits just get bigger with more laws” (ProCon para. 3).

Even though evidence proves otherwise, many people claim the large quantity of guns in the United States are culpable for the country’s murder rates. While the United States population and number of guns have steadily gone up since 1994, the rates of all different crime types have drastically gone down (Planty). Over the last nineteen years, almost fifty million guns have been added to the US, yet firearm violence has been reduced by more than two thirds (Federal Bureau). This completely contradicts the statement that more guns equal more violence. To compare the two, solely based on these statistics, it looks as though the upsurge of guns and armed citizens has only led to less violence. Another example, that disproves this, is the Firearm Act of 1997. After a school shooting, the United Kingdom passed this act banning almost all of their guns. That year, the UK had initially recorded seven hundred and thirty-four homicides. While only steadily increasing, by the year 2002, they had a recorded one thousand and forty-one homicides (Osborne). This act did not prevent homicides at all, and as a matter of fact it only created more violence. The District of Columbia is another case in point on how the lack of guns does not mean there is any lack of violence. DC has a 3.6% gun ownership ratio of the people living there, ranking it the lowest in the Unites States. At the same time, DC has the highest gun deaths and firearm robberies in the Unites States. The District has a

As of November 29, 2016, there have been a total of 13,528 deaths and 27,894 injuries in the US that were caused by gun violence this year. This is an alarming statistic, especially when you consider that 354 mass shootings have contributed to the body count. 1952 of these deaths have been labeled accidental, which is almost as startling as the death toll itself. (@GunDeaths) Gun violence is a problem that is not going to go away unless there is action taken to combat it. A lack of gun education, weak gun regulation, and government indifference towards gun violence in the country has allowed gun violence to become a bit out of control in the modern era, but with proper gun education for students and an effective government strategy to reduce gun violence, we can reduce gun violence in the US rapidly.

“Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.”( James). There is a strong correlation between guns and crime rates; often times the cities with stricter gun control laws will have lower crime rates. For instance lets take at New York City the murder rates in New York in 2009 were 471 people, in 1990 that number was 2,245. New

One of those many statistics would be the number of casualties created by firearms in the United States. According to Zakaria, “the number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year [which was around 2011]. Around 11,000 were gun homicides.” The number of deaths is just tragic. To think that many of the citizens in the United States go around shooting other citizens is definitely stomach churning. The fact that this statistic is so painstakingly true is one of the reasons why it is so effective. Zakaria goes on to compare the United States to different countries such as Australia and England. In England and Wales, there are only 50 gun homicides a year. According to Zakaria, that is only “3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people”. Zakaria uses the data from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to compare the United States to other countries. The homicidal rate in the U.S outgrows that of other neighboring countries by 12 percent. Australia had all their automatic guns and semi-automatic guns banned for residential use in 1996. According to Zakaria, the Australian gun ban was a “real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions” (Zakaria). By blatantly pointing out the number of exceptions that the United States has with their guns continues to support his argument about why restricted gun control is needed. So the question really is: How can America expect for any results in homicide to happen if there is still a big archway that citizens can use to generate more

While this graph is based on data from 2012 and thus out of date, it still shows a fairly clear correlation between gun ownership and gun related deaths. It is hard to deny the fact that more guns is the reason for, especially when you take into account that the U.S. is relatively average when it comes to other, non-violent crime rates. Moreover, one comprehensive review by a doctoral student at Columbia University examined nearly 130 different studies on the effects of gun control laws. The trend overall was that the more restrictions there were, the fewer gun deaths there were. One especially revealing study found that after the Fire Arms Act, which required background checks, training, and banned fully automatic guns, among other things, was passed in South Africa in 2000, there was a “decreasing trend (13.6% per year) for firearm homicides [in five major cities] through the implementation of the program and until 1 year after the law was fully implemented” (Santaella-Tenorio et al. 151). Reviews of studies on the effect of similar laws in other countries show a distinct correlation between reducing gun ownership and a fall in homicide

According to Dr. John R. Lott Jr, world recognized economist, this is not the case at all. Lott holds a Ph.D in economics from the University of California of Los Angeles has rigorgously decidated to finding the correlation between violence and guns within the United States. According to this findings “Consealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States” several misconceptions where cleared in a scienfic manner. First, the number of consealed handgun permits are increasing each year. Just within the past 2015 year, 1.7 million additional permits were issued. This has resulted in a 15.4% increase in permits within one calendar year. Where John R. Lott Jr. makes a distinction in his research center, that although permits are increasing, this does not neccesarily mean that violence is increasing as well. To the contrary belief violence is decreasing at a significant rate. Just between the years of 2007 and 2014 murder rates have fallen to an dismounting rate of 4.2 per 100,000 people. Looking at both variables closely this has represented a 25% drop in overall murder rate while the percentage of permits have increased at a rate of 175%. This provides a basis that lets concerned families, verterans and students that the possession of Firearms is not a direct correlation to violence within

Isenstein writing for the National Journal proposes that there is a distinct correlation between states with strict gun laws and gun violence. “The states that im¬pose the most re¬stric¬tions on gun users also have the low¬est rates of gun-re¬lated deaths, while states with few¬er reg¬u¬la¬tions typ¬ic-ally have a much high¬er death rate from guns.” (Isenstein) The charts that are presented in the article support the claim, but again bring up the question about the variables used to define death rates from guns. Annotations to the article imply that some outside influence caused a revision to update some charts to only display gun-related homicides and exclude suicides and accidental deaths. Sullum critiques the study and points out a different perspective from the same data. He underscores that the rankings can be drastically altered by focusing on homicides and not including suicides. Wyoming is ranked for having a high suicide rate but a low homicide rate whereas the District of Columbia has a low suicide rate but high homicide rate. (Sullum) The National Journal shows that the six states with the lowest rates of gun-related deaths in 2013 also have relatively strict gun policies when considering the laws for purchasing and carrying handguns. Additionally, these states do not have a ‘stand your ground’ law. (Isenstein) Sullum contends that these states alone have a correlation between gun deaths and strict gun control laws. His example of a contradiction is New

In this essay I will describe correlation is a measure of association as well as describe different methods of establishing a correlation between variables. In this essay I will also explain advantages and disadvantages of each method, were each must be applied, and provide particular circumstances and examples in which a researcher may want to establish correlation