Gun Control Essay, Research Paper

Some people are for new gun control laws, but I am one of the many that are

against them. Now, it is impossible to pick up a newspaper or watch the evening

news without being bombarded with the details of another mass shooting, or

another child that was killed while playing with a gun. Unfortunately, there are

many people who take the easy way out when it comes to a solution to this

problem, they choose gun control. There are many facts that support my position

in which I will explain. First of all, numerous studies have proven that there

are many protective uses of firearms, but most are masked by the few larger

negative gun stories in the news. Mark Johnson, a journalist for Media General

News, reports that despite scholarly studies indicating that law-abiding

citizens use firearms from 764,000 to 3.6 million times each year to thwart

crime, most defensive gun use incidents go unreported to the authorities. A

survey done by Florida State University criminologist, Gary Kleck, suggests that

there are 2.2-2.5 million protective uses of guns each year. John R. Lott, a

graduate of University of Chicago Law school, has found with his studies that

allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it

appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. Also, National attention

has been given recently to the notion that foreign countries that harshly

restrict gun ownership have crime rates much lower than that of the U.S. . In

fact the lowest gun crime rates in Japan, Great Britain, and in Canada were when

there was virtually no gun crime laws. The Second Amendment to the Constitution

states that, "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,". The definition of gun control is; government regulation of

possession and use of firearms by private citizens.These laws do nothing to stop

criminals from buying illegal guns, who are unlikely to obey the law and

register their guns. With these laws, gun rights groups say the legislation is

infringing mostly on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens that are

just trying to protect themselves. Our Founding Fathers gave the citizens of the

United States the right to bear arms, and our current government is slowly

trying to take it away. The Columbine high school shootings victims are blaming

weak gun control laws for this incident. In reality it should be the parent’s

responsibility to control their children and lock guns away. Also, just because

of one isolated incident, I don’t believe people should try to take guns away

from responsible people. It is much harder to buy guns with these laws and it

takes more money and time to get them. That is why I believe the citizens of

Columbine are wrong for blaming this incident and the few others on the concept

of gun control laws. Many believe that gun control only takes guns away from

law-abiding citizens and it does nothing to stop criminals from buying illegal

guns, who are unlikely to obey the law and register their guns. I feel that the

term gun control is improperly used. The government is using it as a way to take

our right to bear arms and other than a bodyguard or a law enforcement officer

at one’s side twenty-four hours a day, the most effective deterrent to criminal

attack is the criminal’s fear that the victim is armed and prepared to defend

him or her self. It is for these reasons that I am against these and also

because America should be able to protect themselves from criminals that do

abuse firearms.