Do Guns Provide Safety

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Gun Control In the article “Do Guns Provide Safety? At What Cost?”, originally published in Medscape.com by members of the Department of Psychiatry in Hennepin County Medical Center, Puneet Narang, MD; Anubha Paladugu, MD; Sainat Reddy Manda, MD; William Smock, MD; Steven Lippman, MD; and Cynthia Cosnay, RN; dispute on an extremely controversial topic in today’s society: as to whether or not “gun possession actually enhances personal safety.” (Narang et al.) The audience of Medscape.com consists largely of female college graduates between the ages of 35 to 64. The authors’ purpose for writing this article is to inform the medical community about the dangers and risks involved in private gun ownership. They hope that by raising awareness among doctors concerning these issues, they will be able to impact the way people think. And by doing so, change the gun regulation within the Second Amendment of the Constitution. In opposition to the numerous people who “feel that having a gun provides greater safety to them and their family,” Narang and his colleagues argue that in reality guns increase the risk of death and injuries as well as medical expenses. (Narang et al.) The authors’ beliefs that the possession of firearms increases the risk of death and injury have been evidently proven in several statistics acquired from the Kentucky Violent Death Reporting System. According to these statistics, the presence of a gun in the home results in more deaths to the owner and/or family, while using the gun to shoot an intruder results in less deaths. (cited in Narang et al.) According to Miller and Hemenway’s article Guns and Suicide in the United States, suicide is the Martinez 1 leading cause of death among gun owners in the initial years of acquisition. (cited in Narang et al.) In fact, out of 395 fatalities occurring in a household, suicide accounted for 84 percent.

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