By: Nathan Reding
Guns have been a greatly controversial topic for as long as I can remember. Even more so in the past few years in light of recent events involving guns. Events such as the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut, where a total of 28 people were killed, including the shooter. As well as the Aurora shooting, where a man walked into a theater, threw tear gas, and shot at the people at the movie, killing twelve and injuring seventy. While there is no doubt that bad things happen with guns all too often, it seems as if guns have ended up taking most, if not all, of the blame for these most heinous acts of violence.
An example of guns being ratted on for something they had nothing to do with is the school stabbing at Franklin Regional Senior High School. On April 9, 2014 in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, a 16 year old student grabbed two kitchen knives from home and used them to stab 21 of his fellow classmates and a security guard, before finally being tackled to the ground by his vice principal. One writer, who wrote an article about the stabbing, said that the fact that this was done with knives should not take away from battles for more gun control laws. The linking of the school stabbing and more stringent gun control laws was completely and totally unnecessary. There were no guns involved, so they didn’t need to be brought up, if anything this event just goes to show that a person doesn’t need a gun. If a person really wants to inflict damage, or harm on a person or persons, they’ll use whatever they can get their hands on. The student could just as easily have looked up how to make a bomb on the internet, so by that logic should the internet be made illegal? Guns do not make people kill other people, people kill people because they want to, it just so happens that a lot of them decide to use guns when doing so.
People are always fighting for things they believe to be true. Some fight for the environment, some for sexual orientation, and some for more stringent gun control laws, some even want guns to be banned overall. After events like Sandy Hook and the Aurora movie theater shooting, more people tend to get involved in the fight against guns, and understandably so. All they are trying to do is make the world a safer place for themselves, their kids, and their kids’ kids, and they believe that the best way to do so is to make gun laws more severe, or get rid of guns altogether. Most people seem that making it completely illegal for people to own personal weapons would make the world a better, safer place. Similarly, they seem to think that the more guns there are in the world, the more violence there will be. But, contrary to popular beliefs, as gun sales rise, crimes with guns decline. Sometimes people simply need to take a deep breath and look to the facts.
Let’s look at what the United States would be like today if the government had created much more stringent gun laws and upheld them thoroughly. For an example, let’s look at Russia. In Russia, it is completely and utterly illegal for a person to own a personal handgun, long gun ownership is limited only to those who are licensed hunters. In 2002, the gun ownership rates were 4,000 guns to every 100,000 people and the murder rate was 20.45 people to every 100,000. According to the Russian Census of 2002, the population of Russia in 2002 was 145,166,731 persons. Doing some calculations with these numbers, out of the 145,166,731 people in Russia in 2002, only 5,806,699 people owned guns and 29,686 people were murdered. This is a perfect example that there do not need to be guns for people to kill. If a person truly wants to kill someone, they will get it done, with whatever kinds of tools they have available. Russia has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the developed world, yet the highest murder rate. Why? Because the fact that the people don’t have guns doesn’t stop them, it may slow them down a bit, but they still get their kill.
When it comes down to specifics, the handgun seems to be the most sought after gun to ban. Russia is an example of a country where handguns have been completely banned, and the murder rate is 20.45 people out of every 100,000. Similarly, in the 1990’s England decided to move from stringent gun control laws to banning any handguns and many long guns, demanding they be turned over to the government. Ever since then, England’s crime rate sky rocketed, criminals turned to illegal ways to acquire guns, and seemed eager to do so. It was once so that English forces strongly opposed carrying weapons, yet because of the ever rising crime rates, more and more police are being armed. “It is a massive deterrent to gunmen if they think that there are going to be armed police” (Kates and Mauser, 657). Countries where handguns are legal have much lower murder rates. Comparing countries where handguns are legal and countries where they are illegal shows just how much of a difference handguns make in the murder rate. A few countries where handguns are illegal: Russia, murder rate: 20.45 per every 100,000 people, Luxembourg, murder rate: 9.01 per every 100,000, Belarus, murder rate: 10.4 per every 100,000 people (Kates and Mauser, 664). A few more countries, where handguns are legal: Finland, murder rate: 1.98 per every 100,000 people, Norway, murder rate: 0.81 per every 100,000 people, and Germany, murder rate: 0.93 per every 100,000 people (Kates and Mauser, 664). Banning handguns just shows that the people who are killing others are not obtaining their weapons legally, or they don’t need a firearm to kill someone. When people have their own handguns, they can protect themselves from danger, but if you take away the good guys’ gun, it’s harder to scare off the attacker.
Concealed carry has become a very popular topic as well. Concealed laws legally allow citizens who have permits to carry a concealed weapon on their person at any or all times. Concealed carry laws are in effect in many of the 50 states of America and have proven very effective. For example, on July 9, 2013 Illinois finally passed a bill allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons. After the bill was passed, there were noticeable changes in crime rates. Murder rates in Chicago were the lowest they had been since 1958 in the first quarter of 2014 (Howerton). Crime rates as a whole have dropped by 25 percent from 2013. “Detroit police chief, James Craig, said criminals should be afraid to break into homes or commit other crimes because it could be the last thing they ever do. Craig also pointed out, “you’re not always going to have time to dial 911.”” (Howerton). Concealed carry laws diminish crime rates because criminals don’t know whether the person they’re dealing with is armed or not, and whatever they do to a person, may be their final actions.
While guns may be a part of many tragedies in our lives, the guns are not where the fingers need to be pointed. It takes a person, with serious intent, to kill someone, especially a completely innocent, unsuspecting group of people that takes a person who is seriously messed up. People are always thinking of the negatives, that guns are used to kill, but they are also used to defend. If someone knew that you had a gun under your bed, they will not break into your house, in fear that they may be seriously injured, or even killed. All it takes is the thought that there might be a gun in the house to turn the criminal away from crime. Criminals and murderers will continue to obtain guns whenever they want from illegal sources, no matter if guns are illegal in the United States or not. Taking guns away from the innocent who use them to protect themselves from those who illegally obtain them is not the right move.
Notes:
Featured Image: Image borrowed from The Misplaced Alaskan.
Video of a 15 year old girl giving an excellent speech about gun control.
Click on image to the right to enlarge.
Works Cited
Hepburn, Lisa M., and David Hemenway. “Firearm Availability And Homicide: A Review Of The Literature.” Aggression & Violent Behavior 9.4 (2004): 417-440. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Kates, Don B., and Gary Mauser. “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder And Suicide?.” Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy 30.2 (2007): 649-694.Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Howerton, Jason. “Here’s What Happened to Crime in Chicago After Illinois Finally Passed Concealed Carry Law.” The Blaze. N.p., 4 Apr. 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.