Gun Control Essay, Research Paper

If gun control worked it would mean LA, New York, and Washington D.C. were the safest cities in the world. In this essay I will explain to you why Gun Control on American citizens will not lessen but impel the crime rate of this country. Guns will always be available to criminals willing to meet the right price. Two million citizens a year survive because of the right to carry concealed weapons. In the past banning handguns has proven to increase crime rates. The right to hunting will be taken away from the honest citizen also.

(American Firearms, Jackie Bushman pg.17)

Banning guns will only hurt the law-abiding citizens. Banning guns doesn t mean that they will be gone. There is nothing the government could ever do to stop criminals from being capable of getting guns. It will just leave the American citizens and their families defenseless against the criminals with guns. When a 71-year-old Des Moines, Iowa, man answered the door at his home one afternoon, he was met by a pair of ruffians wearing ski masks and brandishing a martial arts weapon. After they beat the elderly resident with the nunchaku-hardwood sticks connected with chain or rope-they ordered him to remain seated while they went after his grandson upstairs. But as the intruders beat the 27-year-old resident, his grandfather came to the rescue armed with a gun. As he fired on one suspect and then the other each leapt out separate windows and fled. (12/20/00 The Armed Citizen, Mike Tag pg. 6)

Criminals will still find a way to get a gun even if it means paying 1,000 dollars for it. Take drugs for example, even though they are illegal they still exist among Americans. Another example would be in the thirties when the government banned alcohol. It still found its way into the country. More than 90 percent of all crimes are done with the gun known as the Saturday Night Special. This is a gun that can be bought for less than 50 dollars and has no recreational use or protective use. They are simply there for criminal use. Too remove those weapons might reduce crime because the weapons would not be at such an affordable and have such quick access to a weapon.

There are over 2.5 million instances in America where honest law-abiding citizens carry which have licensed handguns use them to defend themselves or their families. In most cases they do this without firing a single shot. You won t hear this on the news though u will only hear about the murders and armed robberies. States favorable of concealed weapons laws have lower crime rates than the states with restrictions on concealed carry laws. The homicide rate for states in favor of concealed weapons laws have 31 percent lower, and 36 percent lower burglary rates. After Florida legalized right to carry a concealed weapon the crime rate went down 22 percent, meanwhile the National rate has risen 15 percent. Only .007 of the licenses have been revoked because of crime afterwards.

The average criminal is released from prison far too early. The average sentence time for murder is only 7.7 years; rape, 4.6; robbery, and aggravated assault

1.9 years. Every day in this country 14 people will be murdered, 48 women will be

Raped, and 578 people robbed by convicted criminals who were released too early from there sentencing. Which concludes that the criminals should be spending more time and have bigger consequences for their actions. Also juvenile crime is at an impeccable rise. Between 1980 and 1990 heroin/cocaine arrests in juveniles rose 713 percent. In addition to this in over the past five years, juvenile gang killings increased 208 percent. Only 1.5 percent of those juveniles were sent to adult or criminal court and out of those 85.3 percent were not sent to prison. The average criminal commits 187-287 crimes a year from the surveys done by the FBI and others no gun control has ever lowered the rate of crime. In recent study it has been proven that 90 percent of all murderers have had prior criminal offences and records.

Another draw back to banning guns would be the taking away the sport hunting. Over 65 million people in the United States hunt, to take that sport away from them would be unconstitutional and taking away of the right to bear arms. The Great American Gun debate has recently come up with a question and it is why does the media s view and opinions that no gun control is the reason for all the crimes but recent studies clearly state that personal ownership of guns does in fact reduce crime.

Estimates read that a 12-year-old child has an 83 percent of being the victim of a

Violent crime in his lifetime. They also conclude that 911 calls will be answered within

five minutes only 28 percent of the time. If u leave the police in charge for your own

protection, what do you think a criminal can do to you in five minutes before the police

arrive. 50 percent of People in America have guns in their homes for this reason.

This is why the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the American Federation of Police, and National Police officers Association of America are all in favor of personal gun ownership. In 1986 two psychologists Peter Rossi and James Write interviewed 1,874 convicted criminals in 10 different states. The felons said that they were more afraid of an encountering with an armed citizen than that of a police officer. Even though there is 17,000 violent crimes a year with guns there is estimated 22 million self-defense uses of handguns and most without firing a shot. The media seems to avoid this information and only talk about the murders and robberies. The media also exaggerates the accidents of children with guns. The media s perception on children dying every day from gun accidents is by far a false statement. This gives the false perception that gun accidents with kids are on the rise. Reality is that since 1975 accidents have decreased 60 percent. In a death due to unintentional injury report firearms came in last for accidental deaths.

Another false statement would be that of the cop killing, armor piercing bullets

out today. The media hopped on this occasion by saying, new Teflon bullets blast

through police vests, and NRA opposes cop killer bullet ban. The truth is that in 1960

Dr. Paul Kopsch (an Ohio coroner), Daniel Turcos (a police sergeant) and Donald Ward

(Dr. Kopsch’s special investigator) started experimenting in a higher penetration bullet

for law enforcement uses. These bullets would be used to pierce windshields and car

doors. Instead of a lead bullet they were constructed out of 100 percent coiled steal.

The outside was made of brass, which soon found that this metal damaged the barrel of

the handgun so they began making it out of Teflon this material didn t scratch the barrel

as the brass did. However the use of Teflon did not in any way improve the velocity or

Penetration factor of the bullet. And this began the start of the cop killing Teflon bullets

rumors.

(www.angelfire/guncontrol/no.com)

In 1982 NBC made a prime time special about these so-called cop-killing bullets.

Although police officials asked them not to show it because the bullets constructed by

The three men were unheard of other than in the hands of police officers. Not only did

they air the show but they repeated showing it frequently after. Soon following the

Media s misconceptions of these bullets congress acted on this making some bullets

Illegal based on if it was armor piercing or could go through some bullet resistant

Materials.

The facts of these bullets are that armor-piercing bullets are only legal and available to police officers. There has not been one case were a police officer was killed because a bullet pierced his vest. Cop Killer bullets are just a media born myth and have influenced the people of America and even congress.

(www.infoseek/gunrights.com)

Although the majority of the people in America believe that handguns shouldn t be outlawed there are still a lot of people who feel they should be, around 40 percent feel this way. About 20 percent feel that all guns should be outlawed.