Gun Control Laws Will NOT Reduce Crime Essay

The case is about whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. Similar to the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008); the right to sleep and bare arms for the purpose of self-defense. McDonald a retired maintenance engineer brought a suit against the City of Chicago for depriving him from his Second Amendment right to bare arms. In 1982 a law was passed in the City of Chicago banning registrations for hand guns. But, there is also a requirement by state law to have all firearms registered, making it impossible for McDonald to own/register disown guns.

The legal question in the case would be “Does second amendment apply to everywhere or can states and cities overturn it”. In the case McDonald vs. Chicago, the case was only applied for a man defending himself, and 2nd Amendment only protects a right to possess a firearm. However for the case District of Columbia v. Heller the Court declined to say whether the 2nd Amendment not only applied to the District of Columbia, but also the states and local

The crucial question regarding this topic is whether or not the second amendment is appropriate “to the states and their political subdivisions.” When McDonald took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, on June 28, 2010, they ruled a 5-4 decision vote for Otis McDonald citing that it should be selectively incorporate as applicable to the states through the fourteenth amendment—the due process of law clause. This meaning the fourteenth amendment and selective incorporation protects American citizens from the states restricting their rights or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Court suggested that an individual has the right to obtain and carry a handgun or other firearms for self-defense and other lawful purposes being that it is an American fundamental for our country’s “scheme of ordered liberty and system of

“In 1994, there were 23,326 murders in the United States; by 2013, that number had fallen to 14,196, an incredible 39-percent decline. More specifically, according to the Department of Justice, the number of firearm-related homicides declined from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. The Department of Justice further concludes that even non-fatal gun-related crimes are declining, dropping 69 percent between 1993 and

A majority of the American people feel that gun control laws will help reduce crime rates because the waiting period would allow time for a person’s temper to cool down. They also feel that gun control will prevent repeat offenders because when a person tries to purchase a handgun, he will have to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. The questionnaire will include questions about the buyer’s past, for example, if they have a criminal record or a record of any mental illness. If there is a criminal record in that person’s history, he will not be able to make the purchase. Restricting handgun ownership would also reduce crime, because guns are used most often in robberies and murders (Mayer 28). They are very easily concealed under a coat, or even in the waistband of pants.

My topic for my Senior Paper is, “Do more gun laws lower crime rate?” I chose to do this topic because it is indeed near and dear to my heart. I come from a family of gun owners and because of that I proudly support the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution. I also live in a city that is greatly affected by gun violence. Chicago is one of the most violent areas in the country with gun violence and living in such a city and being a gun owner makes me think. Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws, plus a high gun violence and murder rate. Coincidence? I don’t know and so I am trying to figure out if the strict gun laws cities have actually reduce crime. Nowadays guns have been the ones in the media, whether in a good way or bad way. With my research, I want to conclude whether strict gun laws actually help to reduce crime or increase it.

In "Just Take Away Their Guns," author James Q. Wilson argues that "Legal restraints on the lawful purchase of guns will have little effect on the illegal use of guns" (Wilson 63). Wilson points out that it would be tough to remove all legally purchased guns from the streets and nearly impossible to confiscate illegally purchased guns. Gun advocate J. Warren Cassidy argues that "The American people have a right 'to keep and bear arms'. This right is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. . ." in an article titled "The Case for Firearms" (Cassidy 275). James B. Jacobs and Kimberly A. Potter wrote in an article called "Keeping guns out of the "wrong" hands: the Brady law and limits of regulations" that "US law

Further, despite the fact that gun ownership in the U.S. increased enormously during the 1990’s, there was a consistent, dramatic reduction of criminal violence. In fact, homicide and violent crime have plunged over the last 15 years. Considering that 18 of 25 countries surveyed had an increase of violent crime, America’s large decline is impressive. Moreover, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, and Denmark also have a high rate of private gun ownership, and the murder rates in these countries are as low as or lower than developed nations with less gun ownership (Kates & Mauser, 2007).

However such bans are ineffective at preventing mass shootings as “Adam Lanza had plenty of time to reload his guns, as did the shooters at Texas Tech in 2007 and Columbine in 1999” (Domenech n.p.) and “assault weapons…applied to guns used or carried by criminals in at most 2 percent of all gun crimes” (Domenech n.p.). Because of the ineffectiveness of gun control, background checks, and assault weapon bans, the best way to prevent mass shootings is to ban gun use altogether.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of gun ownership on crime rates within a population. In the United states Gun ownership is at an all-time low. The percent of households owning one or more guns went from 42 percent in 1993 down to 31 percent in 2014 (Smith & Son, 2015). As gun owner ship has shown a steady decline in ownership, so has crime over the years. According to the UCR (2010), from 1993 to 2012 violent crime rates per 100,000 have gone from 747.1 to a low of 747.1. While correlation does not equal causation and there are far too many variables to even count, these statistics give a base to where the nation is at as a whole on gun ownership and crime. To find the true answer, a closer look will be had specific cities

There have been problems with gun laws in the past. Most of them are ineffective or they never get passed. Recently, gun laws have been surfacing around the news. President Barack Obama wants to ban certain guns and attachments, but Obama is taking the wrong approach. Instead of banning guns outright, which he cannot do because it is our second amendment right to own guns, he should approach reducing gun violence in a different way. Here is a quote from John Ashman saying that eliminating certain guns does not stop gun violence: "All firearms by nature are deadly, so eliminating certain kinds of firearms doesn 't directly address the issue in any meaningful way" (Ashman para. 2). This is why we need to take a different view from just banning guns. I 'm here to propose a better bill that will affect our citizens for a long period of time. This bill will decrease gun violence in the United States without taking guns out of the equation. Gun laws that are ineffective have had a large impact on this age. More school shootings and more violence has happened due to the horrible laws in place. The laws are not stopping any violence at all. Try imagining people getting murdered with guns, the shooter with total disregard for life. He brutally shoots people many times to release his frustration upon the world. This is why we need better laws to stop this kind of tragedy from happening. People can get easy access to guns anywhere in the United States. The problem is that someone

Although it seems banning all guns will solve gun violence, the reality is that restricting peoples' rights to buy guns will actually lead to more gun violence. In a perfect world banning guns would result in no gun violence; however, the problem is that the citizens who follow the law would not have guns, and the criminals would continue to buy guns illegally. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, "Crime guns are 39.2% of the time bought from illegal sources and 39.6% of the time bought through straw man purchases by family members or friends." This illustrates the fact that most crime guns are not bought legally. So if all private ownership of guns were banned in the U.S., most criminals would still have access to guns. Furthermore,

The restriction of how many guns any one person or house hold can possess would lead to fewer guns in circulation in the United States. This means fewer deadly weapons that have the possibility to be used to harm individuals (Smith). Also, by controlling the number of guns that an individual may own, it will lessen the number of weapons in each community. Although this action may not stop a person from harming others, it will not allow these people to access a large amount of deadly weapons. With no endless supply of guns available, this action has the ability to lessen the crime in our states. This tactic of regulating the amount of guns sold to each individual will help keep our streets

With all of the mass shootings around the country recently, the issue of gun control has become more relevant over the past five years. Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been over 1500 mass shootings inside of the United States according to the Gun Violence Archive. There still remains two sides to the argument, those that want to change the current restrictions and those that believe that changing restrictions will not change anything. I believe that changing the restrictions will not change much. The problem will not be solved by taking guns away from people who are registered and licensed to carry them.

First and foremost, keeping guns out of citizens’ hands will not necessarily lower the amount of people murdered by guns. In fact, James Jacobs, director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at New York University School of Law, and a professor of constitutional law says that there has been a “decrease in violent crime and gun crime in the U.S. since the early 1990s, even though the number of firearms has increased by about 10 million every year” (Davidson). There is a common perception that because there is an increase in gun sales does not mean that there is an increase in gun crimes. Incidentally, the reason why gun death is because of the misinterpretation of the information that the public is given by media sources. The public “reads that 30,000 people have been killed with guns, but what’s