In the wake of the January shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, gun control advocates began loudly calling for stricter gun control laws. These advocates say that tougher gun control laws help prevent further violence.
This might occur in an ideal utopian society, but gun control advocates overlook one very basic premise. Criminals, by definition, are people who do not obey laws. Therefore, by making it tougher for the average person to purchase guns, some law-abiding citizens cannot protect themselves and their families from the criminals.
Based on recent data, there are approximately 300 million guns in the United States, and 100 million of those are handguns. By definition, guns are identified as a handgun or a long gun. Long guns include rifles and shotguns. Between 40 and 45 percent of American households, own at least one gun, with men being the majority of owners. However, the number of female gun owners, currently around 13 percent, is rising as women are taking their personal protection into their own hands.
Two large metro areas illustrate the effectiveness of gun control laws. Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Ill., both issued what amounted to complete bans on handguns. During those years, violent crime rates skyrocketed in both places.
In 1976, Washington, D.C. passed a law that prohibited most people from keeping weapons in their homes for personal protection. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled the ban as unconstitutional. Some think this helped to end a 30-year spike in crime. While the ban was in place, the murder rate in Washington, D.C. increased by an astounding 73 percent, though the national average during that same time dropped by 11 percent.
In 1982, Chicago and several surrounding suburbs implemented a ban on handguns. In 2010, the Supreme Court also found this ban unconstitutional. During that 28-year period, the number of murders in Chicago committed with handguns rose by 40 percent.
A 1982 study detailed in the book “Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms,” by James D. Wright and Peter D. Rossi, surveyed felons in 11 prisons across the county. The study found that 34 percent were scared off, wounded, or detained by an armed victim, and that 40 percent of them decided not to commit the crime because they knew or believed the victim had a gun.
It seems that after any heinous act of violence there is a knee jerk reaction to place blame and make sense out of a senseless act. Unfortunately, people on both sides of the gun control issue seem to use these types of tragedies to their advantage.
For example, in the April 2007 shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., a mentally ill student walked into two buildings full of students and began randomly firing before taking his own life. When the bullets stopped flying, 33 people lay dead, including the gunman, and 25 more were injured.
In the wake of this shooting, coined as the deadliest shooting rampage in American history, those on both sides of the gun laws issue wanted changes.
Those in favor of stricter gun control laws said that privacy laws prevented any revelation of the shooter’s mental stability when he legally purchased the two guns used in the shooting. Since 1968, it has been illegal for those with mental illness to possess firearms; however, the database used for the background checks was not linked to the database that stored the records of the shooter’s mental illness. In essence, the right hand could not see what the left hand was doing. In January 2008, a federal law closed this loophole by mandating all states “share the names of mentally ill people with the national background-check system,” which both sides of the gun control issue supported.
In contrast, gun rights advocates maintain that if Virginia Tech allowed students to carry weapons on campus, the gunman may not have killed so many. In many states, including Virginia, those who legally own a handgun can get a concealed weapons permit.
The problem today, as we approach the fourth anniversary of that tragic event, is that the 2008 law designed to prevent further violence is largely unenforced, according to an Associated Press story in the Virginian-Pilot, “Most states not reporting mentally ill to block gun buys.”
The article asserts that the Associated Press found in its review that more than half the states in the country do not comply with the law on mental illness, and other than Virginia, which submitted over 100,000 names during the past three years, many other states sent in as few as 25 records of people fitting that model.
There is little incentive for states to comply with the law because in many cases the cost of upgrading the database is more than the fine for non-compliance.
Gun control advocates used the fact that another mentally unstable college student purchased a gun, that he used to killed six and wound numerous others including Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords, in their ongoing fight against the American people owning guns. Although a local community college deemed the shooter as unstable and kicked him out for his behavior, no court had declared him as mentally ill, so his name did not appear on the database of those who cannot own guns. Arizona does comply with the 2008 law, and is submitting names to the database, albeit slowly.
One of the men responsible for subduing the gunman that shot Congresswoman Giffords was carrying a concealed handgun. In interviews, Joe Zamudio said he was fully prepared to shoot the gunman to stop him had others not already disarmed him. Zamudio helped tackle the shooter and hold him down until police took him into custody. Zamudio said that he carries the gun for protection and will not ever leave home again without it.
Congresswoman Giffords is herself a gun owner, and even though the Democratic Party usually supports gun control, she is a gun rights supporter.
It is completely illogical to assume that restricting the sale of guns to the public will do anything to quell gun violence. In fact, as we have seen in Chicago and Washington, D.C., the opposite is true.
According to Thomas Jefferson, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . .disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
When our forefathers wrote the Constitution’s second amendment, which gives people the right to keep and bear arms, they knew something that we seem to have forgotten. It is perfectly reasonable to want to punish those who commit violent crimes, but it is unreasonable to punish the victims who only want to protect themselves.
Sources:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/guns-still-getting-hands-mentally-ill-st...
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
http://warriortimes.com/2011/02/01/ed-schultz-interview-with-joe-zamudio/
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guns9dec09,0,592387...
http://articles.philly.com/2008-03-01/news/24997614_1_gun-incidents-law-...
Comments
Gun Control
I think Giffords is a perfect example of an innocent person who could have been killed. Although she wasn't killed, the shooting has affected her life, as she has gone through surgeries and many months of therapy. Her brain will probably never be the same as it was before the shooting. I have such a strong view about guns. I believe that most people who own guns are responsible and most own guns for safety. However, the percentage of people who use guns to harm people is not small either. A gun can kill a person with one bullet, and I believe it is so easy to shoot something when you are in the moment and very emotional. Whether you are mad, sad, hurt, etc. There are so many people who go kill their ex for revenge. However, this is not what guns were meant for. I know there are benefits to guns, but I will never own one and I will never allow my husband to have one in the house. Some people are too emotional to own guns and should go through a process testing their sanity before they are allowed to buy a gun.
I agree with you
I agree with you UCCS-8F11-12, i think that this tragedy could definatley been avoided. Now Im not for total banning of weapons such as rifles and pistols i believe it needs to be regulated a bit closer. I feel that to own any firearm people should have to get a Firearm permit, much like pistol permits for some states but also for long guns as well. There should also be regular renewals and whatnot like there are for a drivers license. Also retailers need to exercise a bit of common sense. If a person comes in wanting a civilian model of the M4 and wants 30 round banana mags or 100 round snail mags chances are he will not be using it for deer hunting.
Gun Ban Advocates
Gun bans can curb crime but gun bans inside the house should be exempted. There are a lot of cases we know that personal guns are used for crimes mostly committed by students in school, this we cannot avoid if a person has mental disability. People or robbers or persons who loves to carry guns will be wary if this ban will be in effect. If possible, guns should not be available in any house as this could be easily used unintentionally. If there are more ways to prepare such as installing alarms in the house and outside the house; have dogs, then go for this peaceful ways. Make the house burglar-free. Or guns may cause personal injuries in most cases which might be fatal.