Safe Or Deadly, You Choose

Guns have been used for homicide and suicide at a disappointingly high rate over the years. Each life lost is a life that matters. Do we really want to let our children grow up in a world where everyone has extremely simple access to purchase firearms that could harm you? There are always new cases of homicide and suicide making headlines in America but gun control is nonexistent yet to help prevent these cases. As Americans, we shouldn’t have to worry about risking our lives while going into public with our families. If the ability to acquire a firearm was stricter, there would be no worry about any of these horrible things happening to ourselves. America is a free country; we are supposed to be able to live without worry and

Guns are used for protection, power, and sporting purposes. Guns are beneficial to society when used by trained professionals, such as the police and military. When in untrained hands, however, guns can cause death to friends, neighbors, family members and children. Due to their small size, weight and concealability, handguns pose some of the greatest risks to the public, ranging from accidental death in the home to mass shootings in public places. Consequently, private ownership of handguns should be banned by the US government due to their irresponsible use in murders and accidental deaths, the increased dangers to others caused by their concealability, and the availability of alternative, non-lethal self-defense weapons.

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.

My second point is why guns are such a problem in the United States. The problem with guns is fairly straightforward: they make it easy to kill or injure a person. In Dr. Jeffrey A. Roth’s Firearms and Violence Brief he points out that approximately 60% of all murder victims in the U.S. were killed by firearms. In 1985(the latest year for which data is available) the cost of shootings was estimated to be more than $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. Arthur L. Kellerman found that residents of homes where a gun is present are 5 times more likely to experience a suicide than residents of homes without guns.

Many criminals who get access to these lethal weapons can commit mass murders or directly target the government. Terrorist attacks can be carried, killing hundreds or sometimes even thousands. Thirdly, armed citizens can accidently kill another citizen when a dangerous situation unfolds. When danger strikes, the person with a firearm is most likely to panic the most, and so they will pull the trigger on anyone to save their own life. Similarly, the police sometimes accidently kill innocent citizens who otherwise were being calm and were abiding by the law.

“The United States of America has one of the most highest homicide rates than just about any other developed country around the world, and it also has much more civilian ownership.” (Verbruggen). This is a good thing that we have freedom to have our firearms and protect ourselves from danger, however this can also be bad because letting citizens have so much freedom to buy firearms can lead to shootings in which they have. Say a person who has not committed any crimes yet, goes into an ammunition and firearms store, and purchases an automatic assault rifle with a high capacity magazine. If that person happens to have some dark thoughts, people can end up losing their life because we have too much freedom involving the purchasing of these rifles and other premium guns. However, it is important to look into why these mass shootings do occur. “Not only is there no correlation between gun ownership and overall homicide within a state, but there is a strong correlation between gun homicide and non-gun homicide suggesting that they spring from similar causes, and that some states are simply more violent than others.” (Verbruggen) This shows that with some of the cases we have involving deaths, not all of them come with being mass shootings. It is not hard for a person to grab a regular pistol and go out shooting innocent civilians, however, it is less likely that they will kill as many people as they can with an automatic assault rifle. As an overlooker of gun

Furthermore, according to Gunowners.org, Gary Kleck’s book, who is a professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee, implies that guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self defense, which means that each year firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.” Gunowners.org also adds, as reported by the National Safety Council, “Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.” This proves how citizens are more likely to use guns in case of self defense, and if the gun is needed it is most often used just to scare the criminal away. When debating if concealed-carry should be allowed, it should be considered that law-abiding citizens know how to use guns with common sense. In the final analysis, even if it is proclaimed that if one allows guns in certain places it will end up with guns in the hands of criminals, it is quite easy to see people have been given the right to possess guns, therefore one may use it in case of an

Although The National Rifle Association, America’s largest, private gun advocacy group, will argue that “Studies indicate that firearms are used over 2 million times a year for personal protection...”(Lapidos.), the Violence Policy Center (backed by data from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey) reports that “…the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes… comes to an annual average of 67,740.” That’s a rather large discrepancy suggesting that the number of guns actually used in self-defense is much less than the NRA would have us believe. Clearly, “as the VPC paper states, ‘guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes.’(Lapidos.)” In contrast, Americans are now more likely to die from gun violence than a car accident (Samuels.) As documented by the Gun Violence Archive, year-to-date in 2015 there have already been 7,347 deaths and 14,777 injuries. Of those deaths and injuries, 416 of them were children under the age of eleven and 1,424 were teens between the ages of twelve and

Although, many Americans believe they have the right to bear arms and use guns for protection. According to the article, “American deaths in terrorism vs. gun violence in one graph” the author Julia Jones states “The prevalence of guns go a long way toward explaining America’s terrible record – they are used in two – thirds of all murders. This demonstrates, guns are the most common weapons that are used in most of all the murders that are occurring. Due to the fact that guns are the most common weapons, it makes the United States have a horrible record. According to the same article “American deaths in terrorism vs. gun violence in one graph” states guns play a large role in suicides too. The article, also states that in 2013; 21,175 Americans killed themselves with guns, while 11,208 were killed by others. This means, people buy guns to take their lives away without a hesitation. This also means, people die no matter with a gun, either they commit suicide or someone kills them. As shown above, there wouldn’t be so many gun attacks and suicides if stronger gun control laws should be

The scene is all too recognizable. A troubled person pulls out a gun in a school, an office, or a shopping center, and he or she slaughters innocent men, women, and children. Recently, mass murders have occurred at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and Omaha’s Westroads Mall (Schwartz). These tragedies are not inevitable, so people wonder one question. Are guns in our society getting out of control?

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.

Some believe that concealed handguns will increase the possibilities of an argument becoming more lethal, and that our society will be safer if we have fewer guns on our street instead of more. However, most responsible adults respectfully follow the laws and tend to not misuse their handguns, or rifles. The belief is public safety should be handled by professionally, trained and qualified police officers, not citizens who hold little or possibly no experience training. Well, with responsible armed citizens on our streets, it gives us another form of safety because one will be able to protect the public rather than rely on the police force. Police are not always able to be at the scene in time to stop crimes from happening, according to the ‘Self-defense-Mind-Body-Spirit’, the average police response time is an estimated 10-12 minutes. Citizens who are trained properly and at the scene of the crime will be able to go into action quicker and possibly save lives depending on the type of chaos. Nonetheless, Between May 2007 and Mar. 11, 2014, there was a reported 622 citizens killed, along with 14 law enforcement officers nationally by citizens who have legally been permitted to carry a concealed handgun. Another issue with open carry is that a police officer responding to a crime may not immediately be

Not to mention that, statistically, not only armed civilians are unlikely to stop crimes, but, what's more, are more likely to make a dangerous situation more deadly. With gun regulation, gun homicide and suicide will certainly lower.

“Interview the survivors of mass shootings and you hear these phrases a lot: Gunfire, they explain, rarely sounds like what it is… Many who have lived through the terror recall thinking it was a joke. A drill. Anything except the awful truth: that they might have only a few seconds to live” (“Stop the Violence” -Brody 220). Some people say guns make us feel safer, but in reality, they cause more harm than good. Arthur Kellermann and his colleagues concluded that, “Sadly, buying a gun does not make you safer. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that bringing a gun into your home increases the chances you will be killed” (“Feeling safe” -Vyse 27). Gun violence poses a very big threat to the U.S. “The U.S. has many more guns--and gun deaths--than any other developed country. In 2014, there were more than 33,000 such deaths in this country” (“Fight Over” 12). Guns are extremely dangerous and many deaths occur due to them, including murder, suicide, and accidental deaths, so stricter gun laws and technology should be used to decrease the number of gun deaths in the U.S.

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.