The Decline Of Weapon-Related Crimes

The number of murders every year committed was about 512; some were either homicides or gang related. About 80 percent of the murders committed were done with an illegal firearm. Evidence conducted by Tracey Meares, from Yale, found the high crime areas, committing murders or possessing illegal firearms lived in indigent and isolated communities. Chicago’s Project Safe Neighborhoods developed small community programs to reach out to felons and offenders. Developing small programs for felons and offenders was a way for Law Enforcement to understand their attitude and outlook on gun violence or possessing a gun. For Law Enforcement they wanted to stress the consequences of possessing an illegal firearm and get an ex-offender to share with felons the importance of staying away from a life of crime. There is no other better way to get through to a felon than an ex-felon sharing his own tragic life experiences.

With the popular culture providing positive images of guns, the United States has a gun prevalence that is very rare in the modern world. While many people appreciate the “gun culture”, guns are heavily involved in violence in the United States. According to U.S. Department of Justice, since 1960, more than 750,000 Americans have died under firearms, including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries. The figure 1 provides a comprehensive survey of U.S. violent crimes for the period from 1993 to 2011.This figure illustrates that from 1993 to 2011, about 60% to 70% of homicides were associated with a firearm. Over the same period, between 6% and 9% of all nonfatal violence, with about 20% to 30% of robberies and 22% to 32% of aggravated assaults involving a firearm.

Looking at the nightly news, many would believe violent crimes are at an all-time high. There is no longer just one on one violent crimes or gang violent crimes. There are court shootings, school shootings, church shootings, theater shootings, mall shootings, workplace shootings, and others. Most one on one crime is committed with an illegal gun; whereas most mass shootings are done with handguns that are purchased legally. Although, violent crimes reported on the nightly news is hard to hear or see. It has become very common to encounter this information on a daily basis. The numbers seem to be overwhelming; statistics share violent crimes are at an all-time low. While the numbers of crimes are decreasing, gun ownership

On January 17, 2017, “Surge in the Violence” was released by the Crime lab at the University of Chicago, which had combined a report on the statistics of homicides taken place in the year 2015 and 2016. The number of homicides taken place in the year of 2016 has soared by record high of 67 percent than the previous year. Chicago is one of the busiest and advanced cities in the world and getting such high numbers in the field of crime is a shame and leaves a bad impression on the rest of the world. The violence related to guns has also increased enormously and according to “Chicago Tribune”, 2,958 people have been shot dead by now this year. Though the data shows that the homicides by gun has decreased significantly but the number is still a problem. The gun violence now is a serious problem and the current situation demands strict gun laws.

The Orlando nightclub shooting in Florida on June 12, 2016 was the single largest massacre in U.S history, taking the lives of 50 individuals, including the shooter himself, and injuring 53 others. This is one extreme example of the gun violence that has been occurring in this country, but mass shootings like this and the one at Newton in 2012 are only a small part of our gun violence issue. The everyday gun violence that takes place in cities all across the United States claims the lives of thousands every single year. According to The Guardian, 33,500 civilians die each year because of gun brutality- “that’s about 1 life every 15 minutes” (Beckett). Between the years of 1999 and 2013, there were 464,003 gun deaths in the U.S, about 58% of them were suicides 37% were homicides. (ProCon.org) Gun violence and the consequences of that violence, have become a real and dangerous problem in the U.S , why else would the CDC list the United States as having the highest rate of gun violence out of all developed countries today? (Gale Opposing Viewpoints) This issue is not just attributable to a single factor, there are several that play an important part in why gun violence is such an issue in the U.S, namely laws and poverty; and in these causes we can also find solutions.

Many focus on the amount of homicides and mass shootings occurring. Which is indeed a problem too, however it is actually significantly lower than it was back in the late to early 90’s. In 2015 there were 12,979 homicides. In the Article Gun Homicide Rate Down by 49% since 1993 by pew research “.In 2010, there were 3.6 gun homicides per 100,000 people, compared with 7.0 in 1993…” according to these statistics homicide has dropped drastically over the years. Yes, this is a very good accomplishment, but rates are still very high. However to my understanding homicides are not necessarily the main problem here.

In 1980, the rate of crimes brought about by guns amid contentions was about the same as from gang contribution (around 70 percent), yet by 1993, almost all posse related manslaughters included firearms (95 percent), while the rate of weapon murders identified with contentions remained generally steady. The rate of gang related crimes brought on by weapons fell marginally to 92 percent in 2008, yet the rate of manslaughters created by guns amid the commission of a lawful offense ascended from around 60 percent to around 74 percent from 1980 to 2005.

As far as overall gun violence is concerned, according to the FBI's 1998 Uniform Crime Reports, the overall violent crime rate in the US decreased about 7%. Robbery alone declined by 11%, the lowest since 1969. In addition, murder dropped by 7%, the lowest since 1967. More significantly, despite the fact the number of firearms and handguns owned by individual Americans continued to increase from 1997-1998, the FBI also reported the rate of firearms used to commit murder and robberies decreased in 1998. (1998 Uniform Crime Reports). These facts conclusively prove that firearms owned by peaceable citizens do not lead to increased murder or violent crime rates. In fact, they demonstrate that armed citizens lead to reduced rates of violent crime. When the gun is in the hands of a well-rounded person, it is no more of a weapon than your every day curling iron.

Jacobs begins by stating that although all gun deaths are tragic, it is important to know how many are suicides, homicides and accidents. By analyzing data from multiple official sources, he addressed the issues surrounding suicides, homicides, gun accidents and gun crimes. In the process, he found that America is a pretty violent nation in general. He came to the conclusion that although there is still a high amount of gun violence and accidents happening every day, for the most parts the numbers have actually been decreasing, despite the increase in guns. He concludes by noting policy makers should focus on anti-crime strategies and social welfare rather than on gun

On Thursday, October 1, 2015, Christopher Harper-Mercer, a 26 year old student who was armed with six guns, killed nine people in Umpqua Community College in Oregon. According to a report released by the F.B.I., mass shootings in the United States have risen drastically since 2000. Also, studies show that countries with higher rates of gun ownership have more mass shootings, an incident involves more than four victims of gun violence, but not include gang violence. The United States has 5% of the global population, but has the most population with people who own firearms. Because some people own multiple weapons; therefore, on average, there are about 89% of the U.S resident own guns, which also have 31% of mass shootings during 1966 to 2012. Gun control is a controversial issue that the people in the United States argue about. Some people want stricter gun laws for a safer environment, while others want to own guns for recreational or self-defense purposes. To find out if restricting people’s rights to own firearms will minimize the number of the mass shootings in the United States, I conducted some research with my group mates. Based on the news articles and scholarly articles, we found that restricting people’s rights to own guns can reduce the number of mass shootings, but not by much, because people who commit mass shootings will obtain the weapons illegally.

Gun violence in the United States is unusually high for a country of such wealth. Although there is not much of a difference in the overall crime rates between the United States and other high-income countries, the murder rate in the U.S. is seven times higher than the combined murder rate of 22 other high-income countries. This is because the gun shooting rate in the U.S. is twenty times greater. The higher rate of gun ownership, and less restricting gun laws are important reasons why violent gun crime in the U.S. is so much more harmful.

counties are as likely to die from a gunshot as those living in the urbanest counties. Rural children die of more gun suicides and unintentional shooting deaths. Urban children die more often of gun homicides, “Pediatrics,June 2010”. Medical treatment, criminal justice proceedings, new security precautions, and reductions in quality of life are estimated to cost U.S. citizens $100 billion annually. Since the Brady Law was initially passed, about 2 million attempts to purchase firearms have been blocked due to a background check. About half of these blocked attempts were by felons, “Cook, Philip(based on gun deaths and injuries in 1997”.Gun violence is someone using guns not to protect but to violently use it on others, in order to improve the rates of gun violence we need to report if we se some one using guns nor for

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).

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.

In Chicago when turning on the news on a Friday night there is this special called Weekly Death Toll. Normally, every state has this program. However special Chicago news channels such as WGN- TV, ABC7 Chicago, and CBS Chicago, take the death toll to a whole new level. On a weekly basis, there are at least twelve-gun homicides and after averaging that up that settled to seven hundred and sixty-two murdered in Chicago yearly. However, those are only murders that is not counting the four thousand three hundred and thirty-one shootings in Chicago. Makes one think, “How are these murderers getting guns?”, or “Why are they even allowed to have a gun? What are the police doing?”. Although most gun lobbyist of the United States have argued that the current gun control laws are fixing the growing gun violence, closer examination reveals that a longer waiting period for gun ownership and higher taxes on bullets can properly restore the faith in American humanity by decreasing our appalling gun violence.