Gun Control

Transitional Paper Assignment Once in a while, when there are firearm incidents, people bring up a gun control idea and how bad it is to own one and use it against others. First of all, did crime rate increase as people own more guns? Should people make a stronger laws and restrictions for gun control to help prevent such disasters? Essentially, can we get rid of guns? How many guns did we have in the 90’s? In Gun Control Overveiw database this quote was stated, “Institute of Justice reported in a national survey that in 1994, 44 million people, approximately 35 percent of households, owned 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Seventy-four percent of those individuals were reported to own more than one firearm (Congressional Digest 2).” By 2000, the total number of firearms that people in United States have increased to about 259 million (Congressional Digest 2). By 2009, the total amount of firearms that U.S people had was about 310 million (Congressional Digest 4). So, did increase in total number of firearms increase crime rate? No. If we take a look at the reports that have been reported by State and local law officers to FBI and annually in Uniform Crime Reports says that it used to be approximately 6.6 thousand, but as time passed in 2000 only 3.6 thousand, 3.9 thousand for 2006 and 3.2 for 2011 (Congressional Digest 4). It actually decreased. Which means restricting people from obtaining firearms will increase the crime. Trotter Gayle said “Anti-gun legislation keeps guns away from the sane and the law-abiding – but it does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals (27).” That means, whether firearms restriction increases or not criminals will get firearms somehow legally or illegally and will commit crimes. But on other hand, nice citizens who do not have firearms, due to so much restriction they wouldn’t have one to protect themselves from those of criminals who want their goods. Some and reasonable gun control laws will be good, but excessive will not end well, because less people will have firearms and more criminals will have firearms to do whatever they want. If this is the case, why would you give up your right to bear arm? Could we get rid of firearms from people? First of all, no, because of our constitution that is saying that people have right to bear arms. It is a citizen’s right to have a firearm and defend themselves from any danger it might come later in their lives. Because of that, even though government does not want people have guns on their own, but they cannot do anything about possessing the firearms. Again, even if they could take all of our guns, they will have to give it back to us because if anything happen to people because they took the gun, and they weren’t able to defend themselves from the danger, government will suffer. Since government can’t do anything about that, they are doing a program called “Gun-buy-back” programs (Phillips Scott 249). This is how the program worked; if a person surrenders his/her gun, he/she will get the $10 - $100 depend on the gun (Phillips Scott 249). The government has exercised the program in several large cities such as Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and etc from 2007. Since then, they collected approximately 3,000 guns. Compare to how many guns are out there, 3000 does not seems much. In essence, people want guns. By meeting their demands the crime rate actually has been decreasing and we can’t get lead of them from people. If that’s the case, why are we trying so hard on the gun control that is never going to happen? Especially in U.S. if I don’t have a gun and I go travel to somewhere, I wouldn’t feel safe also because I know that so many guns are out there and I don’t know, when it will shred my throat.

Congressional Digest 92.3 (2013): n.pag. Gun Control Overview. Database. 10 Feb 2014.