Gun Control

Gun control in a broad sense does not work. The common argument from the left is that stricter gun control will result in fewer people being killed by guns, and fewer mass shootings will occur. The argument from the right is that disarming law-abiding citizens won"t stop the crazies from killing, and we have a right to protect ourselves from anyone wishing us harm. So, who has history and facts on their side? The United States has the least strict gun control laws in the world. We also have the highest per capita gun ownership in the world. Approximately 30-35% of households in the United States own a gun, and if you add up all the guns there are approximately 1.2 guns per person. Now the scary part, what is our homicide rate here in the land of the free? Well its 3.9 per 100,000. That ranks us at number 107 in the world for homicides. The 106 countries that top us, well they are stricter on gun control. Let"s break this down further. Homicide rates per capita jump in big cities. Coincidently, the cities with some of the most restrictive gun control laws top the chart:St. Louis: 49.9, Detroit: 43.5, New Orleans: 38.7, Baltimore: 33.8, Newark: 33.3, Buffalo: 23.2, Pittsburgh: 22.4, Memphis: 21.4, Atlanta: 20.5, Cincinnati: 20.2, Oakland: 19.5, Miami: 19.2, Kansas City: 16.7, Stockton: 16.4, Cleveland: 16.2, Washington: 15.9, Philadelphia: 15.9, Indianapolis: 15.8, and our beloved Chicago: 15.1 homicides per 100,000. So if the United States is in the bottom half of all the countries in the world for homicide rate, yet we have the least restrictive gun laws, doesn"t that imply that gun control legislation does not increase our safety? Not to mention that we can see an increase in homicides in cities where there is an increase in gun control laws. This makes sense: Criminals are more emboldened knowing there is a higher likelihood their victims are unarmed. Again, disarming law-abiding citizens doesn"t take the guns away from the criminals. How do we know this? Because only 10% of 18-40 year olds who had a gun at the time of their arrest admitted to having obtained it legally. Gun control laws only pertain to people who buy their guns through an FFL individual or gun shop. Criminals steal, borrow, or buy/sell on the black market to obtain their weapons. When it comes to mass murders, usually the cause is some ideological view with the rare case of just pure insanity. The Boston Marathon bombers used a pressure cooker for example, should we ban those? The argument then goes to gun deaths are more frequent than those pesky pressure cookers. Well like I said before: 3.9 per 100,000 people are murdered each year, and only 2.3% of those deaths are from a mass murder (identified as more than 4 killed in a single incident). But this goes deeper, only 15% of mass murders have a single name attributed, in other words the rest are probably gang related incidents. So there are 0.013 people killed in 100,000, or in round numbers 40-50 people a year. 10,076 people die a year from car accidents. Do we blame cars? People who are deranged enough to take their religion, racism, or political ideas to the next level, and murder as many people as they can, are not going to be derailed by gun laws. Either they will obtain them illegally, or kill by some other means. However now they have a lot more unarmed people to fight them. How many guns were legal to carry into the school in Newtown? How many guns were allowed at Fort Hood? How many guns were legal to carry in the Pulse Night Club? Get the idea?2nd AmendmentOur founding fathers created our 2nd Amendment in order to protect the rest of our rights. What good are rights if a government can strip them from you because you have the inability to fight for them? The whole intent of the 2nd Amendment is to protect us from a government who has become tyrannical " not hunting. Tyranny is the stripping of individual"s rights, and punishing those who don"t believe with their ideological views. Some might even say our current government is tyrannical in that they not only allow but support anti 1st Amendment situations: Safe spaces " in other words don"t come here if you disagree with us. Punishing Christians who refuse to partake in an act that goes against their religion " Christian bakers having to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Forcing religious institutions/businesses to provide abortion coverage in health insurance. Whether you agree with those things or not, understand that from the rights point of view those are all gross violations of our 1st Amendment and have further polarized our country. Everyone"s favorite example in history: Hitler. Disarming the citizens in the name of social justice, then becomes tyrannical and responsible for millions of deaths. Others: Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong-Il/Un, and so on. History is replete with tyrannical governments. The only thing that stops them is other freedom loving countries, or their own people rising up and fighting. Round Conclusion:Gun Control does not make us safer " theoretically or statistically. In fact there is enough evidence to possibly point that it makes us less safe. Most Gun Control laws infringe on our 2nd Amendment, which in turn prevent citizens from being able to protect themselves from threats up to an including our own government.