Gun Control Thesis Statement Essay - 781 Words | Bartleby

Gun Control Thesis Statement Essay
Thesis Statement: Gun control decreases crime. If gun control is regulated, then we will have less crime. Access to firearms makes killing easy, efficient, and impersonal, which increases the lethality of crime. Josh Sugarmann, the Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center has once said, "We recoil in horror and search for explanations, but we never face up to the obvious preventive measure: a ban on the handy killing machines that make crimes so easy.”Allowing untrained people to carry guns puts others at risk and it can result in self-inflicting injuries both by suicide and unintentional incidents. Gun violence in America kills more than 30,000 and injures almost 70,000 each year. Guns can be misused and abused, which is why gun…show more content… For example, during a year when over 5,000 teens and children died from gun wounds in the USA, in Great Britain, where gun ownership is very restricted, 19 teens and children died from gun wounds. * U.S. suicide rates overall were 30 percent lower than other countries, but the U.S. firearm suicide rate was 5.8 times higher. * It was found that “criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use.” Studies show that the number of respondents claiming to be victims of gun violence outnumbered those claiming to have used a gun in self-defense by more than 4 to 1. * Guns kept in the home were 22 times more likely to be used in unintentional shootings, murder or assault, and suicide attempts than in an act of self-defense. * In Japan and England many police on patrol do not carry firearms because in those countries, gun control has decreased the number of guns used by criminals. * The U.S. doesn't even require a background check every time a gun is sold and allows the sale of assault clips holding more than 10 bullets. This makes it easy for dangerous people to get their hands on lethal firepower.
Works Cited * "Taming the Gun Monster: Is It Constitutional?" Los Angeles Times 1 Nov. 1993. Print. * Page, Clarence. “Children are at Risk From Handgun Violence.” Gun Control: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997.
(Tucci 1). Kleck has written many books about gun control and self-defense, and received the Michael J. Hindelang award in 1993. Kleck studied 2,000 households and found that guns have been used more for self-defense than committing crimes. Kleck did research in 1993 on self-defense and found much information regarding crime versus self-defense. Research has found that robbery and assault rates are lower when the victims are armed with guns. The study on guns and use of self-defense was one of the most damaging arguments against restricted gun rights (Garrett 1). The two most relied on surveys are National Self-Defense Survey, researched by Marc Gertz and Gary Kleck in 1995, and the Police Foundation Survey done in 1996. During 1988-1993, “there were 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use per year in the United States”. It has been proven that “…defensive uses of guns are about three to four times more common than criminal uses of guns” (Kleck 2). Out of all the criminal gun assaults, only 3% involve anyone being injured. The
Data from the NCVS imply that each year there are only about 68,000 defensive uses of guns in connection with assaults and robberies,[16] or about 80,000 to 82,000 if one adds in uses linked with household burglaries.[17] These figures are less than one ninth of the estimates implied by the results of at least thirteen other surveys, summarized in Table 1, most of which have
Throughout the past 20 years, the purchase of guns have increased drastically but at the same time, crimes with firearms are down a shocking 69% (Snyder). Gun control is often used to create laws for the intention of reducing gun injuries or death by gun and might involve background checks or creating difficulty to own a gun altogether. Some believe strict gun laws will help America reduce murder rates. However, others believe gun control will remove the right to bear arms as an individual. America needs to refrain from enforcing gun control because citizens have the constitutional right to own guns and gun control will fail to decrease murder rates which would better be decreased by a basic education of gun safety.
This view is true for the 26 developed nations analyzed as well as state-to-state level. Opponents of this view argue that this does not imply that someone cannot get shot in a state like Massachusetts. Despite the strict gun laws in this state, injuries and crimes related to firearms has been on the rise (Swanson 1). Opponents feel that gun control does not do much to regulate firearm related deaths and injuries. They argue that anyone can get shot anywhere; hence, this claim does not hold true. However, statistically speaking, this supporters’ trend holds true. When access to guns is controlled, the rate of homicides is likely to go down.
In the United States, a quarter of commercial robberies are committed with guns. [47] Robberies committed with guns are three times as likely to result in fatalities compared with robberies where other weapons were used,[47][48][49] with similar patterns in cases of family violence.[50] Criminologist Philip J. Cook hypothesizes that if guns were
Every year, more than two thousand people die in the United States from gun-related injuries. The population groups most affected by these avoidable deaths are children and young adolescents. The misuse of firearms is a problem in the United States and also a bigger problem worldwide, of course. However, the incidence of firearm use does vary from country to country. According to the United Nations Report on Firearm Regulation, Crime Prevention, and Criminal Justice (1997), the United States has "weaker firearm regulations and higher numbers of deaths involving firearms than all other industrialised, and even most developing, nations." The study also showed that the total firearm death rate in the United States in 1995 was 13.7 per 100,000 people, "three times the average rate among other responding countries and the third highest, after Brazil and Jamaica."
Gun Control in America
Introduction
It is impossible for one as an America citizen not to weigh in on the recently reignited gun control debate. As a matter of fact and of necessity, at the very least, this particular debate concerns and encompasses social, moral, and legal issues of fundamental significance to
President Obama said at a press conference on October 01, 2015 “The solution to such violence is obvious. It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun” (Simple Minded Gun Control). Gun control is a controversial issue worldwide. The reason why this has attracted so much attention is because not everyone is in favor of gun control and each side brings up excellent points about the issue. Research related to this issue strongly supports the claim that there SHOULD be more gun control laws. The first task I will complete in this research paper is clearing up any misconceptions about Gun Control and all the terminologies I will use. Followed by my three arguments that prove this position which are (1) Incidents like Sandy Hook or Oregon will be less likely to occur (2) It reduces the high rates of accidental deaths (3) As the years pass by and technology updates the laws should be up to date as well. Members from the National Rifles Association state that No law-abiding American should be forced to face evil with empty hands. I say I agree with President Obama there SHOULD be more gun control laws because it should not be as easy as it is for someone who wants to inflict harm on others to get their hands on a weapon.
The Gun Control Debate Gun control has a history dating back to 1791, when the Second Amendment of the Constitution was ratified. The Second Amendment has drawn a great deal of criticism in recent years. It has evolved into a much more political issue to which many citizens can relate. After all, many stories involving guns have appeared much more frequently in newspapers, on the television, and the radio. The debate of gun control started with the passage of Gun Control Act of 1968, which banned ownership of guns by certain people and regulated the sale of guns. Since then, two major groups have emerged: people who support strict federal laws on guns and those who oppose them. This essay will cover the Second Amendment, public safety, home safety, and hearing from those who are for and those who are against the federal restrictions on guns.
Gun Control Does Not Reduce Crime Most People support the fact that stricter gun control laws will reduce crime, but gun control laws only stop the harmless people from purchasing firearms. For a criminal, majority of their weapons will be bought illegally or through black market. Criminals will always have access to an arsenal of weaponry. Gun control laws will not stop them at any cost. For example, ever since the shootings of Columbine High School and Sandy Hook, mass shootings have increased significantly worldwide. Gun control has been proven to not be effective. A smarter idea would be to partially restrict firearm access to the public.
Next, citizens say guns are rarely used in self-defense, “Of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.79% of victims (235,700) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm,” . Although guns are used for self-defense 2.5 million times a year. The police cannot protect everyone all of the time. NRA Stated “61% of men and 56% of women surveyed by Pew Research said that stricter gun laws would make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families.”
Guns are used for Self-Defense less than 1% of the time
Looking at data from 1992 through 2005 and 2007 through 2011, there were over 192 million violent crimes committed in the United States during this 17 year period. Of those crimes, the victims chose to use a gun as a