While it is true that guns are involved in thousands of deaths per year in the United States, there are things that lead to far more deaths than guns. According to Levitt, in 2009, 45,000 people died in autmobile related accidents and only 30,000 died in gun related incidents (151). Using the logic of those against gun rights, it’s the car’s fault not the driver’s fault that 45,000 people die every year. This is just an irrational attempt to shift reponsibility off of the people that actually cause these incidents. Another example that shows that guns aren’t so dangerous is that in any given year there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools as compared to 1 death for every 1 million guns, or 175 children killed for the over 200 million guns owned in the U.S. (Levitt 150).
For example: more people are killed in Chicago than in Kentucky in any given month due to the improper use of a firearm, accidental or otherwise. It would seem, given the crime rate, that the people of Chicago would be more in need of a handgun for self-defense than those of other cities nationwide. Chicago city lawyers think that states and cities should be able to work out their own solutions to gun crime. There is irony in the fact that when the ban on handguns was lifted in Chicago, the burglary rate dropped from 881 in 2007 to 170 in 2008. The burglary rate from 2008 has also remained steady to present day (Joan, 2010, p.
Most agree that gun-related injury or death of innocent citizens should never be tolerated, but there are opinions on the course to take in an effort to discover a solution. This paper will offer problems and solutions associated with past and present efforts to manage the issue of gun-related injuries/death. This paper will also render the discoveries and opinions of the above-mentioned group members as it relates to this controversial topic. Stricter gun-control laws do not help prevent gun-related injuries/deaths One method to prevent gun-related injuries/deaths is to make serious efforts to treat depression, mental health issues, and drug abuse in society. A large number of gun-related injuries/deaths are committed by members of society that have untreated disorders and others that simply neglect firearm safety rules and existing gun-control laws.
In addition, field studies were conducted in Portland and Vancouver to prove the effectiveness of gun control. The two cities are several hours apart by car, similar culturally in many ways, and have similar crime rates. However, guns are strictly regulated in Vancouver; turns out the people of Portland are at six times greater risk of being murdered with a gun than those in Vancouver (Moorhouse and Wanner, 5). Clearly handgun regulation works; when Washington D.C banned the sale of handguns, the murder rate dropped considerably, twenty-five percent (Moorhouse and Wanner, 9). This evidence indicates that tough firearm legislation would cause a drastic drop in the number of deaths involving
She is of the perception that high rates of injury and gun mortality are on the increase due to lenient gun control policies. She argues that the increased possession of firearms, especially illegal guns, has increased gun violence and organized criminal activities. According to (Peterson & Stebner, 2013) Kelly also argues that on average up to 32,000 people lose their lives while 69,000 people are injured in the whole of America due to guns. Gun mortality and injury not only reduce the country’s productivity and performance but also cost the U.S over $100 billion to especially law enforcement agencies in fighting
This is assuming that the criminal who is breaking countless laws as it is has decided to abide by the gun control law. If he/she has not, the offender now has even more of an upper hand. This being said, it is easy to argue that a law banning civilians from owning guns would actually increase crimes. A great example of this is England. The two years following the 1997 draconian gun ban, crime rose by 40% according to BBC
Much of the argument over stop and frisk lies in numbers.” For instance, the NYPD says its policy has led to a falling murder rate and more gun seizures, with homicides down 21 percent this year and the number of illicit guns seized up 31 percent from last year”(Huffington post). If this tactic results in this much of a drop in homicides and an increase of thirty one percent in illicit guns seized, why not use it. This tactic obviously helps keep the streets a little safer. Most if not all cities that imply stop and frisk experience a dramatic drop in crime rate. “The reality is that crime has gone way down in New York City and that stop and frisk has certainly contributed to it.
“More than 1,700 college students in the U.S. are killed each year—about 4.65 a day—as a result of alcohol-related injuries” (The Marin Institute). With a number as high as this, lowering the drinking age would only increase this ongoing problem of underage drinking. It has even been proven by the Marin Institute to be the leading cause of death among teenagers. Many adults feel as if the 18 to 21 age groups cannot handle drinking responsibly, then they should not be permitted to use it. Alcohol is a very serious depressant and one of the leading problems for death (Hanson, 2007).
Such kind of people are less likely to obey gun control laws, that law might have a excessive crash on law abiding individuals. According to justice Breyer, “the proposition that strict gun laws cause crime is harder to accept than the proposition that strict gun laws in part grow out of the fact that a nation already has a higher crime rate.” The murder rate in the United States, 5.7 per 100,000 people in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. In 2005, according to the Justice Department, 55 percent of homicides were committed with a handgun and 16 percent with another kind of
civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year, for that year there were an estimated 11.6 million offenses. That means that 8.5% of the offenses in the year 2000 were thwarted due to civilian intervention with a firearm. In John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime Lott states that there are 60% fewer multiple-victim shootings and 78% less victims per attack in states that do not have a concealed weapon ban. There are many different statistics that have been compiled to show that gun ownership reduces crime, and just as many that support the opposing view, it is not a matter of whether or not citizens own a gun, it’s a matter of the intent in which they have when it comes to using the gun. While most people would by a gun for conventional purposes such as self-defense, hunting, or target shooting, it is inevitable that there will be people who buy a gun in order to use it for robbery, murder, rape, or a number of other heinous crimes, but depriving those who would use their firearm without malicious intent of their second amendment right does not rectify this horrible fact.