2 The Effect of the Brady Law and the Pros and Cons of Gun Control Abstract Gun control has been a prevalent topic in criminology for many decades. Opponents say that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns; that guns are needed for self-defense from threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders; and that gun ownership deters crime rather than causes more crime. Permit requirements and bans on sales to minors were the most effective of the regulations analyzed.” [32] In Indiana and Connecticut, after “red flag” laws to remove guns from people who may pose a threat were enacted, gun suicides decreased by 7.5% and 13.7% respectively, while suicides by other means did not decrease during the same time. [157], There were 572,537 total gun deaths between 1999 and 2016: 336,579 suicides (58.8% of total gun deaths); 213,175 homicides (37.2%); and 11,428 unintentional deaths (2.0%). [11][14] For example, the 2011 mass shooting at a Seal Beach, CA hair salon reportedly began because of the shooter’s custody battle with his ex-wife who was a hair stylist at the salon. By any definition of mass shooting used, most come from guns that were purchased legally. [11] During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 5,364 US soldiers were killed in action between Oct. 7, 2001 and Jan. 28, 2015; between 2001 and 2012 6,410 women were killed with a gun by an intimate partner in the United States. A debate on gun control has been a major concern. [148]. Judged by this criteria gun control proves its contradictory character due to the peculiarities of its pros and cons and particular practical realization in politics of different America’s states, which show that crime rates is interdependent with the issue of gun control, both in direct correlation (decreasing of lethal level due to the armed attacks) and opposite relation (increasing of … It is to restrict access to them when someone may be tempted to commit an act of violence with them. It stops people from turning an act of murder into an act of mass murder. [176] John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, gun rights activist, stated, “The problem with such [gun control] laws is that they take away guns from law-abiding citizens, while would-be criminals ignore them.” [70] According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics May 2013 report, 37.4% of state prison inmates who “used, carried, or possessed a firearm when they committed the crime for which they were serving a prison sentence” obtained the gun from a family member or friend. Additionally, 90% of women, 91% of 0- to 14-year olds, 92% of 15- to 24-year-olds, and 82% of all people killed by firearms were from the United States. The U.S. government lost over $5 billion in tax revenues because of these violent acts, with the majority of the costs due to the need for court proceedings. Measures to control guns create a violation of privacy. [18] Researchers found that a “general barrier to firearm access created through state regulation can have a significant deterrent effect on male suicide rates in the United States. That is a pretty basic principle that applies to legal and illegal gun owners. About 200 people each year under the age of 25 die because of an accidental shooting in the United States. Death Penalty – Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed? [45] In 2009 Switzerland had 24 gun homicides (0.31 deaths per 100,000 people) and 253 gun suicides (3.29 deaths per 100,000 people). Here are the proper bibliographic citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order): [Editor's Note: The APA citation style requires double spacing within entries. Gun control doesn’t stop people who are determined to purchase a firearm. 7. Topics: Firearm, Gun politics in the United States, Gun Pages: 4 (897 words) Published: November 22, 2015. 2016 study, gun homicide rates in the United States were 25.3 times higher and gun suicides were 8 times higher in 2010 than in other populous, high-income countries. Even if gun control laws where made much more strict, these criminals would still be able to obtain illegal weapons and use them to inflict harm and commit violent crimes. This nation has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the world today at 0.7 per 100 people. The guns came from all 50 states, and more than half came from outside of Illinois. [10][12] A 2003 study of 23 populous high-income countries found that 86% of women killed by firearms were in the United States and American women are 11.4 times more likely to be the victims of gun homicides [13] 57% of mass shootings involved domestic violence. [88][89]. We put safety caps on medications to keep children from poisoning themselves… [B]ecause children are naturally curious and impulsive, and because we have shown time and again that we cannot ‘gun-proof’ them with education, we have a responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of children.” [36], The FBI found that in 2013 arguments (such as romantic triangles, brawls fueled by alcohol or drugs, and arguments over money) resulted in 1,962 gun deaths (59.9% of the total). [27] 77% of Americans support requiring a license to purchase a gun. [42] Jeffrey Voccola, Assistant Professor of Writing at Kutztown University, notes, “The average gun owner, no matter how responsible, is not trained in law enforcement or on how to handle life-threatening situations, so in most cases, if a threat occurs, increasing the number of guns only creates a more volatile and dangerous situation.” [43], Both Switzerland and Finland require gun owners to acquire licenses and pass background checks that include mental and criminal records, among other restrictions and requirements. They were also the #1 method of death by homicide (67.3% of all homicides) and by suicide (51.9% of all suicides). Even in gun control legislation included safety measures alone, lives could be saved. Of course, opponents of gun control totally disagree with all the arguments put forward by the proponents. 10, 2016 Lancet study, most state-level gun control laws do not reduce firearm death rates, and, of 25 state laws, nine were associated with higher gun death rates. [19] Ian Ayres, JD, PhD, and John J. Donohue, JD, PhD, Professors of Law at Yale Law School and Stanford Law School respectively, state, “with guns being a product that can be easily carried away and quickly sold at a relatively high fraction of the initial cost, the presence of more guns can actually serve as a stimulus to burglary and theft. [15], Of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.79% of victims (235,700) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm, the least-employed protective behavior. [23][24][25][26] According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the costs of gun violence can include legal services, medical costs, perpetrator control, policing, incarceration, foster care, private security, lost earnings and time, life insurance, productivity, tourism, and psychological costs (pain and suffering), among others. The ease with which criminals are procuring guns illegally suggests that one answer to gun violence is fewer guns overall, denying criminals their supply. [17] Of the 84,495,500 property crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.12% of victims (103,000) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm. Certainly not any pros I didn’t already defeat. Recreational Marijuana – Should Recreational Marijuana Be Legal? Bible Commentary Bible Verses Devotionals Faith Prayers Coloring Pages Pros and Cons, 19 Inspirational Prayers for Thanksgiving Dinner, 11 Powerful Prayers for Adulterous Husband, And There Was War in Heaven Meaning and Meditation, Thought It Not Robbery Meaning and Meditation, Husbands Submit to Your Wives Meaning and Meditation, Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness Meaning and Meditation, 25 Powerful Prayers for a Good Night’s Sleep. There is roughly one firearm owned in the U.S. for every person. [53] John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, stated, “States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes… The effect on ‘shall-issue’ [concealed gun] laws on these crimes [where two or more people were killed] has been dramatic. [10][14] 76% of women murdered and 85% of women who survived a murder attempt by an intimate partner were stalked in the year before the murder or murder attempt. Gun control measures to require licensed vendors could prevent many of these sales as it would require them to conduct a criminal background check. Gun control doesn’t stop people who are determined to purchase a firearm. [31][164] Female first-time firearm owners were 35 times more likely to commit suicide within 12 years of buying the gun compared to women who did not own guns; male first-time firearm owners were about eight times more likely to do so. Pros for Gun Control:. They’re even 2.5 times more likely to die because of the complications they experience because of diabetes or 2 times more likely to pass away because of Alzheimer’s disease. 1. About 25% of the successful suicide attempts in the U.S. in 2012 involved hanging or suffocation. Only 3% of people own 50% of the civilian weapons in the United States. Only 1 in 4 households in the U.S. owns a gun, which means the majority of the quantity is owned by a relative few people. v. Heller US Supreme Court majority opinion syllabus stated, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” [3] The McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) ruling also stated that the Second Amendment is an individual right. The United States has 120.5 guns per 100 people, or about 393,347,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world. If microstamping efforts, licensing, or other forms of coding are instituted to track guns, then it would create a privacy issue where a database search could offer access to more information than anyone needs about a legal gun owner. A better solution than banning firearms would be to offer educational programs that help people to understand how it is a useful tool. Although there are over 10,000 victims of homicide each year attributed to handguns or firearms, a gun is still just a tool. The next country that comes even close to this ownership rate is Serbia, which has 75 guns per 100 people. Who is the author? The term ‘assault weapon’ was conjured up by anti-gun legislators to scare voters into thinking these firearms are something out of a horror movie… [T]he Colt AR-15 and Springfield M1A, both labeled ‘assault weapons,’ are the rifles most used for marksmanship competitions in the United States. 22% of Americans own one or more guns (35% of men and 12% of women). 61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would “make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families.” [58] Nelson Lund, JD, PhD, Professor at George Mason University School of Law, stated, “The right to self-defense and to the means of defending oneself is a basic natural right that grows out of the right to life” and “many [gun control laws] interfere with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals.” [59] Constitutions in 37 US states protect the right to bear arms for self-defense, most with explicit language such as Alabama’s: “every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” [60][61] Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, stated, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” [62] A May 9, 2013 48% of convicted felons surveyed admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed with a gun. Groups like the Coalition for Gun Control (CGC) and Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns (CDPG) wanted Canada to ban handguns and some … 5. So now let's first see some arguments from the Pro gun-control side: More laws on gun-control could reduce casualties(Pro): By statistics we can say that this could be the case, but by some studies on weapon bans we can't conclude if new laws on guns would be really that effective. There are pros and cons of gun control as well as many different policies concerning this around the world. 32% of gun owners say that the only reason why they own this tool is because they go hunting with it. We must think that all human life and its potential is priceless for us to begin moving beyond where we are at. Civilians today have access to folding, detaching, or telescoping stocks that make the guns more easily concealed and carried; silencers to muffle gunshot sounds; flash suppressors to fire in low-light conditions without being blinded by the flash and to conceal the shooter’s location; or grenade launcher attachments. [44][45] By contrast the United States has the 26th highest suicide rate (12.3 suicides per 100,000 people in 2011) and the highest gun ownership rate (88.8 guns per 100 people). A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made them feel safer, and 64% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer. 9. 3. [4] Internationally, the claim that the United States has a major problem with firearm homicide is exaggerated. [35] Marjorie Sanfilippo, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Eckerd College who has researched children’s behavior around guns, stated, “We put gates around swimming pools to keep children from drowning. [44][4] Harvard professor David Hemenway, PhD, wrote “We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. Injury rates from high-capacity mags climbed 156%. Unfortunately in the US, many legally owned guns are stolen by criminals and felons, most commonly through car theft or property break-ins. 12. The accidental shot struck 17-year-old Chad Carless while he was sitting next to him. [41] Gun rights activists regularly state that a 2002 mass shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia was stopped by armed students, but those students were current and former law enforcement officers and the killer was out of bullets when subdued. [145][146] A 2018 study found that 91% of the 1,153 court cases with claims stating a government action or law violates the Second Amendment between the 2008 DC v. Heller decision and Feb. 1, 2016 failed. He shot the criminal in self-defense and did not face charges. More people die from other causes at a significantly higher rate than they do with firearms. [30] A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that “legal purchase of a handgun appears to be associated with a long-lasting increased risk of violent death” [6] According to a Mar. Gun Control Pros And Cons . 6. 40% of Americans are scared that they will become a victim in a mass shooting one day. [16], A June 2013 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report states that “[a]lmost all guns used in criminal acts enter circulation via initial legal transaction.” [18] Between 2005 and 2010, 1.4 million guns were stolen from US homes during property crimes (including burglary and car theft), a yearly average of 232,400. That doesn’t make Americans safer?—it … If someone wants to own a gun, they’re going to own one. According to the Washington Times, 48% of people say that they are not comfortable seeing someone carrying a handgun in a holster in public. The idea of gun control isn’t to break into the homes of people to take their firearms away if they own them legally. A pharmacy manager fatally shot a robber and wounded another after they threatened to kill people who were in the store. [10] A woman’s risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute. [165] Don Macalady, member of Hunters against Gun Violence, stated, “As a hunter and someone who has owned guns since I was a young boy, I believe that commonsense gun legislation makes us all safer. At the same time, 52% of people say that the “average American” can’t be trusted with a firearm and only 41% say that people should be able to carry guns in public in the first place. [45] In 2007 Finland had 23 (0.43 deaths per 100,000 people) gun homicides and 172 gun suicides (4.19 deaths per 100,000 people). [162] Guns were the leading cause of death by homicide (67.7% of all homicides) and by suicide (51.8% of all suicides). Lithuania is an excellent example of why gun ownership is not a measuring tool to use when looking at the rate of suicide for a country. v. Heller, wrote, “the Framer’s single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee ‘to keep and bear arms’ was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias,” hence the inclusion of the phrase “well regulated militia.” [3] Michael Waldman, JD, President of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, stated there is nothing about an individual right to bear arms in the notes about the Second Amendment when it was being drafted, discussed, or ratified; the US Supreme Court declined to rule in favor of the individual right four times between 1876 and 1939; and all law articles on the Second Amendment from 1888 to 1959 stated that an individual right was not guaranteed. Depending on how one defines a “mass shooting,” the United States averaged one per day in 2016. According to the opponents of gun control, it is every citizen’s right to bear arms, and that society would be better off with unrestricted gun rights. Collectively, 143 guns were possessed by the killers with about 75% obtained legally. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent and injuries by 82 percent.” [54] More than two-thirds of gun owners cite protection as a major reason for owning a gun. There are both Pros and Cons to Gun control laws. Up to 10% of the guns that are used in crimes committed by juveniles were sold at either flea markets or gun shows. If gun control measures looked at future purchases as a need instead of a want, it could help to reduce this issue. The government has tried to control the gun violence, however there have been debates about that being wrong and it would take away the citizens of America’s rights. And their cartridges are standard hunting calibers, useful for game up to and including deer.” [68] According to a Feb. 2013 Pew Research report, 32% of gun owners owned guns for hunting and 7% owned guns for target or sport shooting. Gun control regulation is a set of laws and policies designed to regulate the manufacturing, sale, purchase, and use of guns by civilians. ], [Editor’s Note: The MLA citation style requires double spacing within entries. Here are the unbiased pros and cons of gun control to review as they pertain to the United States. 4. Lunatics, bullied school kids, disgruntled workers, and others can inflict mass casualties with guns that otherwise wouldn't be possible. These incidents involved the deaths of at least four people happening inside or outside of the home. If we only focus on gun control, then the other methods of suicide will see a surge of interest. Something somewhere failed that person, making a gunshot the only way out. The guns that often provide the most fear for people are also the firearms that are used in marksmanship competitions. [44] In 2007 Switzerland ranked number 3 in international gun ownership rates with 45.7 guns per 100 people (about 3,400,000 guns total). If the FBI fails to complete a background check in 72 business hours, even a licensed dealer can decide to complete the sale. Many of the guns that are targeted for control measures are called “assault rifles,” but that is not really what they are. [4] When US gun ownership goes down, overall suicide rates drop; meanwhile, each 10 percentage-point increase in gun ownership is linked to a 26.9% increase in the youth suicide rate. I was going to make a list of gun control pros and cons and post it here. Homes with guns stored in them (even safely) increases the risk of a violent incident. There were over 4,400 gun shows in the United States operating in 1998. They are 18 times more likely to die because of a malignant tumor. Suicides are 90 times more likely to happen in homes where a firearm is present. [89], Lithuania has one of the world’s lowest gun ownership rates (0.7 guns per 100 people) but its suicide rate (by any method) was 45.06 per 100,000 people in 1999, the highest suicide rate among 71 countries with available information. [18][4] According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Physicians Alliance, states with the highest concentration of guns have nine times the amount of accidental gun deaths and “89% of unintentional shooting deaths of children occur in the home—and most of these deaths occur when children are playing with a loaded gun in their parents’ absence.” [34] The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 31% of total accidental shooting deaths could have been prevented by installing safety devices on guns: 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof safety locks; and 23% of accidental shooting deaths by adolescents and adults per year could be prevented by loading indicators showing when a bullet was in the chamber ready to be fired.