I haven’t written anything all week, so I decided to post a paper that I wrote back in 2010 for my English II Class. I could go on and on with additional details about this topic from 2010 to present, but the data that I used is still valid and I’m sure that most people reading this have heard about the massive numbers of murders with firearms in Chicago which has some of the toughest gun control laws in the United States. I hope this is informative to everyone. I still plan to write a blog about relationships, but I just haven’t felt like it and I want it to be good if I write it. Hopefully I’ll be able to do 1 blog a week. I think I was being a little overzealous when I thought that I could write 1 per day.

 

 

Gun Control Does Not Reduce Crime

Christopher D. Fronk

Grantham University

 

 

Abstract

Does gun control reduce crime? The anti-gunners would argue that it does. The gun rights defenders argue that it doesn’t because those committing the crimes usually don’t purchase their guns legally anyway. I will look at how gun control has impacted crime rates in this paper to show that while gun control laws can affect the methods crimes are committed, they do not reduce crime.

 

 

Gun Control Does Not Reduce Crime

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as such; “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” (Constitution of the United States, 1787). According to this document, everyone in the United States should be allowed to own a firearm. That is not the case. The United States Government has passed laws regulating the sale and possession of firearms in order to reduce crime. The fact is that while gun control advocates have their hearts in the right place; their policies do not reduce crime.

In order to see the effects of gun regulation on crime, we must first look overseas to nations who have taken gun control further than we have here in America. In 1997, England placed a ban on all handguns. This ban was supposed to eliminate handgun crime and drastically reduce violent crime. Instead, handgun and violent crime have both increased. As the article, “Gun Control’s Twisted Outcome” indicates, “In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued” (Malcolm, 2002). The article continues on to say, “Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled” (Malcolm, 2002). England also has other issues to blame for this increase because they have also forbidden their citizens from carrying any item that may be used as an offensive and therefore, defensive weapon. By leaving their citizens defenseless, Great Britain has emboldened the criminals and left the innocent with no means of self protection. The British mindset is that it is society’s job to protect its members, so an individual should not have to be armed to defend him or herself. They believe that it is the duty of the police force to protect all English citizens.

Anyone who has ever been victimized by a criminal knows that the police are rarely around during the time that the crime is happening. The police usually arrive after the incident is over and then they investigate and try to apprehend the individual responsible for committing the crime. This is evidenced by the article “More Gun Control, More Crime” when it states; “In the United States, ordinary citizens shoot three times as many criminals in self-defense as do the police” (Faria Jr., 1999). That article also reports that “When a woman is armed with a gun, up to 83% of the time she will be successful at preventing rape, and only half as likely of being injured in the process” (Faria Jr., 1999). These results prove that guns are a deterrent to crime. The key word in the previous statement is deterrent because the criminals in America do not know who is armed and who is not.

American burglars prefer to break into houses when no one is home in order to prevent confrontation and the possibility of being shot at. In England, burglars are becoming emboldened by the law and are breaking into houses while the occupants are home. The burglars know that the occupants will be unarmed and are prevented from carrying any object that can be used in an offensive manner, so they only have to worry about getting caught if the police show up during the commission of the crime. In my opinion, everyone should have the right to defend themselves and their families in their own home and any Government who prevents someone from doing so is wrong.

The problem with many gun control advocates is that they view the issue in a social manner instead of a personal one. The gun control theory is that fewer guns within the population will lead to fewer crimes being committed with guns. This mentality eliminates personal liberties and freedoms for the hope of more safety for all. These are not the principles that our country was founded on. The other problem with this mindset is that we can look at the results of gun control laws in other countries and see that they don’t work. Our country was founded on the rights of individuals such as the freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Our founding fathers wanted us to be individually accountable for our own actions. The founding fathers did not want the Federal Government infringing on our individual liberties and freedoms. That is why they wrote the Bill of Rights. To quote our founding fathers, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government” (Jefferson). “(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms” (Madison). “To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them…” (Mason). And finally, “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” (Jefferson). There is no reason why a responsible, law abiding citizen of the United States should be prevented from owning and using a firearm.

There have been a few major gun control laws passed in the United States since 1968. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was a very broad Act that was not very specific. It established restrictions on who could own machine guns and created federal penalties for using a firearm during the commission of a crime. As Gary Rosen states in his article “Yes and No to Gun Control”, “Its central aim, however, was to establish, for the first time, certain national standards concerning how guns are sold, and to whom” (Rosen, 2000). According to Rosen (2000), gun dealers were required to keep records of their gun sales and obtain a federal license to sell firearms. This act also was the first to prohibit certain people from possessing firearms. It forbid the sale of firearms to minors and prohibited convicted felons, fugitives, drug abusers and the mentally ill from possessing firearms (Rosen, 2000).

In 1994, the Brady Act was passed which “requires licensed dealers to run a background check on prospective buyers, who previously had only to sign a form declaring that they did not fall into any of the prohibited groups” (Rosen, 2000). Some states had already implemented many of their own gun laws, but this Act mandated background checks federally.

Many states had implemented state laws on gun control, so some states were already conducting state run background checks. Some states had banned certain types of guns and others had passed laws to prevent children from having unsupervised access to firearms. Some states had mandated waiting periods for handgun purchases or limiting the number of handguns one may purchase per month. Some states also outlawed inexpensive, small frame guns known as “Saturday-night specials”. Some cities have gone so far as to criminalize the possession of handguns or make their purchase nearly impossible.

Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) claims that “in 1997, 32,436 Americans were killed with firearms.” They continue to compare that death toll with those of Americans killed in the Korean and Vietnam Wars which was 33,651 and 58,148 respectively. Of these deaths, almost 13,000 were murders, but around 17,500 were suicides and nearly 1,000 were accidents (Rosen, 2000). The fact is that while HCI’s numbers may be correct, they use them in misleading ways. Gun control advocates claim that a dozen children are killed every day by firearms. What they don’t share is that about ten of those deaths are between the ages of fifteen and nineteen and most of them are killed through involvement in drug or gang activity. The cause of death is the activities they are involved in and gun control will do little to impact these figures. These adolescents are already involved in criminal activity, so they would obtain firearms illegally through theft or the black market anyway.  Of the remaining children who are killed as the result of an accident, backyard swimming pools take many times more lives and I don’t know of an organization in existence whose primary goal is to eliminate backyard pools. The same rule can be applied to guns as backyard swimming pools; as long as they are stored properly, the risk of injury or death decreases dramatically. Pools should be fenced off and guns should be unloaded and stored in a locked container separate from the ammunition.

In regards to suicide, gun control will have little impact. This is outlined by Rosen who states;

As for suicide, there is no reason to think that its likelihood is higher because of the widespread availability of firearms. To the contrary, despite a three-fold increase in the number of guns in the U.S. over the last three decades, the total suicide rate has remained fairly constant. When guns are less readily to hand, people who are determined to kill themselves just resort to other equally lethal means. (Rosen, 2000)

Gun ownership does not influence the rates of crime either. Gun ownership has risen while the rates of murder, robbery, and assault have dropped (Rosen, 2000). Gun control actually has an adverse affect on crime. As indicated by Daniel D. Polsby (1994):

Guns don’t increase national rates of crime and violence – but the continued proliferation of gun-control laws almost certainly does. Current rates of crime and violence are a bit below the peaks of the late 1970’s, but because of a slight oncoming bulge in the at-risk population of males aged fifteen to thirty-four, the crime rate will soon worsen. (Polsby, 1994)

All these statistics indicate that gun control does not reduce crime.

While gun control advocates have their hearts in the right place; their policies do not reduce crime. This has been proven through numerous studies on the topic. Gun control laws have been successful in preventing some “at risk” individuals from purchasing firearms through legal means, but they only prevent the purchase temporarily as the criminals will always find a way to obtain firearms.

As Polsby notes:

Gun-control laws don’t work. What is worse, they act perversely. While legitimate users of firearms encounter intense regulation, scrutiny, and bureaucratic control, illicit markets easily adapt to whatever difficulties a free society throws in their way. (Polsby, 1994)

The bottom line is that gun control advocates desire to reduce crime, but they are going about it in the wrong way. The largest problem with gun control is that it is like mass punishment. All Americans must submit to more stringent background investigations in order to purchase a firearm because there are a few bad people out there who use guns illegally. Gun control laws take away personal liberties and freedoms that are granted in the Constitution of the United States. Furthermore, gun control doesn’t meet the intended desire. Gun control does not reduce crime.

 

References

Constitution of the United States (1787), 2009, p1

Malcolm, Joyce Lee. (2002). Gun Control’s Twisted Outcome. Reason, 34(6), 20.

Faria Jr., Miguel A. (1999). More Gun Control, More Crime. Human Events, 55(25), 10.

Rosen, Gary. (2000). Yes and No to Gun Control. Commentary, 110(2), 47.

Polsby, Daniel D. (1994). The False Promise of Gun Control. Atlantic Monthly, 273(3), 57-70.

Jefferson, Thomas. (2010, September 27). What our founding fathers and others, had to say about gun control and freedom… Retrieved from http://www.kysrpa.org/pages/founding%20fathers.html

Madison, James. (2010, September 27). What our founding fathers and others, had to say about gun control and freedom… Retrieved from http://www.kysrpa.org/pages/founding%20fathers.html

Mason, George. (2010, September 27). What our founding fathers and others, had to say about gun control and freedom… Retrieved from http://www.kysrpa.org/pages/founding%20fathers.html