Gun Control 5 Essay Research Paper GUN

Gun Control 5 Essay, Research Paper

GUN CONTROL

A law to outlaw all guns would be more effective at disarming law-abiding citizens than at disarming the criminals who abuse them. If guns were outlawed, the outlaws would not stop carrying guns, but the good, law-abiding people would. It would do nothing about the illegally obtained handguns in the possession of criminals and terrorist. Criminals and terrorists ignore bans. The only two things passing a law of this nature would accomplish would be to take away the honest citizens ability to protect themselves and their families in their homes and give criminals a safer work environment. There are dangerous people everywhere and they will find ways to hurt others no matter how many means of doing so you take out of their reach.

I feel that just because a few nuts abuse a gun doesn t mean that they should be outlawed. If that was the case, than automobiles should be outlawed too. Our country has problems with drunk drivers, but I have yet to hear anyone suggest that all automobiles be confiscated. Far more innocent children will be killed by cars this week — yet we never see anyone calling to ban cars, do we? We seem to be trying to deal with the problem of drunk drivers by stiffer laws for abusers not banning all automobiles. This should also be the case for criminals who commit crimes using guns.

Banning guns will not stop gun violence. It would just ensure that criminals with stolen or smuggled guns would have no fear that their innocent victims would be able to defend themselves. The gun prohibitions and near-prohibitions of cities such as Washington, Chicago, and New York, have not only failed to disarm criminals, they have substantially worsened gun crime by leaving generations of children with no positive role models of responsible civilian gun use. The only gun-users that children in these cities can regularly see are criminals, police (often perceived as a hostile presence), and the most irresponsible set of gun users possible: television and movie characters.

Outlawing all guns would only punish the law-abiding citizens such as myself. I own a gun and know a lot of people who own guns. The people I know would never use our guns for anything other than target shooting, hunting, or an extreme case of self-protection. In 1982 a small Georgia town, about 3 hour s drive from my home, passed a law heading completely in the opposite direction from a total ban on all guns. Kennesaw GA, a suburb of Atlanta, passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole that year. Ten years later, in1991, the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981 before the law was passed. This clearly shows how destructive a ban on guns in the United States would be. This brings to mind a saying I once heard “There are three parties to every violent crime: the crook, the victim and the police. Guess who gets there last.” Not in Kennesaw!

A law to confiscate guns could become one of the most destructive pieces of legislation ever enacted in the United States. The debate over gun control centers on the issue of safety, on one side, and freedom on the other. Gun safety could and should be taught at home. Parents should be responsible to teach and instruct their children proper gun safety and use. The freedoms we enjoy today as Americans were written in the blood of our forefathers and should never be taken lightly. These freedoms are what makes us, and keeps us, the most powerful nation in the world. A gun confiscation law would threaten America’s structure of individual liberty, for a gun prohibition law could not be meaningfully enforced without severely constricting the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says it all: 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 .