Monday, March 21, 2016

Guns are Killing More than they Protect in The United States

There is a big problem in the United States of America that cannot be overlooked any longer. That problem is guns or, more specifically, gun control. There are far too many shootings, injuries and other gun related incidents in the United States and it needs to be stopped for the safety of everyone there. The main reasons gun control is needed are; the United States has the highest gun homicide and suicide rate, household guns are killing more than they protect, the second amendment is understood incorrectly, and the population has a lot of guns.

The first reason gun control should be invoked is because of the high gun homicide and suicide rate. It is the largest in the world and is just going to get worse. The San Diego Free Press states that “In the US in 2012 the total firearm-related death rate including both suicides and homicides was 10.2 per 100,000; in France the comparative figure was 3.0; in Britain, 0.25.” From this statement, a problem can be noticed. There is a clear problem with the ease of getting guns in most of the United States. Someone can just go down to their local gun store, buy a gun and start shooting. Guns don’t need to banned, just harder to get.

Secondly, they do not protect people in their households. Gun owners are actually twelve times more likely to have a guest or family member killed by the firearm than by an intruder. (Darling-Brekhus, 2013) And gun storage is also a problem. If you keep it in a locker, how will you get the gun out fast enough? If it was just in a drawer, a child could find it and accidentally kill themselves. A decent alternative to a gun is a large dog. A dog is better than a gun in nearly every way as it can ward of intruders and children could play with it. Studies show that people are forty three more likely to kill a family member than an intruder (Causey, 2013). There is a very clear risk and not many people should be taking this risk.

Thirdly, a defence for having guns in the United States is that it is in the second amendment. The main problem with this is that most people don’t know what it really means. The Legal Information Institution states “The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads:  ‘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.’” People only state the last part without regarding the part about militia. The militia basically kept towns and communities safe and this amendment made it so that the militia can carry weapons to protect their communities. Today, this is definitely not needed as there are people like police that do all of the protecting.

Lastly, the United States has most of the world’s guns. This fact could be one of the influences as to why people are against gun control. The Wire has multiple facts on this issue for example; the United States has five percent of the population, yet it has fifty percent of the world’s guns. The amount of guns owned by Americans is decreasing but the amount owned by these people is increasing. Twenty percent of gun owners have sixty-five percent of guns. This is a reason why gun owners are not wanting gun control even though it would be beneficial to the citizens of the United States. They don’t want their guns to be taken away and are scared of what would happen if they were.
When this problem is really analysed, it becomes clear that guns are a large problem in the United States. Even though there are a lot of problems with guns in America, people are still wanting to prevent gun control, something that would be beneficial for the United States. Gun control needs to be pushed no matter what because it will end up saving many lives.


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