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Research Papers On Gun Control

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Law , Crime , Gun Control , Violence , Suicide , Social Issues , Control , Gun Violence

Words: 2500

Published: 03/14/2020

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The issue of gun control in the United States has long been an incredibly controversial one, with many unique and complex arguments both for and against it. Discussion on the issue has become even more heated and aggressive in the past few years, given the rise of school shootings, gun-related crime, and highly publicized shooting deaths due to gang violence in metropolitan areas. While many people believe that the Second Amendment is a fundamental attribute of our civil rights, this perspective is antiquated, outdated, and does not take into account the many different factors related to guns and gun violence today. Research indicates a strong correlation between stricter gun control legislation and lower rates of gun-related deaths. Therefore, increased gun control legislation should be implemented in a timely manner in order to facilitate these outcomes as quickly as possible. Given the increasing prevalence of gun-related deaths, the pervasiveness of gun culture, and a plethora of other factors, it is clear that increased gun control measures must be implemented in order to make our country a safer place to live. Despite the objectively terrible outcomes of gang violence, crime and shooting deaths, there are those who argue that enacting strict gun control would take away from a vital Constitutional right to bear arms. The gun lobby in America is a powerful force, with tremendous political power through special interest groups, lobbyists, and organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) (Goss, 2010). In this argument, this would make crime increase more than it already has by taking guns from law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals who acquire guns illegally. Furthermore, opponents argue that, if guns were taken away, criminals would simply change their tactics to using other weapons, such as knives or other bladed weapons (Zimring, 1968). These kinds of hardline oppositions to gun control have allowed the anti-gun control movement to gain substantial political power, while gun control advocates are still largely operating from a grassroots position (Goss, 2010). The difficult nature of this issue is that many of these anti-gun control arguments can still technically fall under the purview of ‘gun control,’ so it may be necessary to provide a clear definition of what exactly is meant by ‘stricter gun control.’ While many proposed sources will work on slightly different definitions of what constitutes gun control, stronger, more restrictive background checks, restraints on unlicensed sale of firearms at gun shows, restriction of concealed carry permits, and other related legislation would provide sufficient levels of gun control to lower crime and gun violence rate substantially. Conversely, others believe the tenets of gun control would effectively deter crime by lowing the number of guns on the streets, and restricting gun access to those who should not have them. Gun control laws have the effect of reducing instances of criminal homicides; Zimring argues that the banning of firearms in major metropolitan areas would absolutely lower instances of homicide (Zimring, 1968). However, the existing laws with regards to gun control are ineffective and inefficient at actually lowering rates of gun violence. Research indicates that the best measures that have been taken thus far to reduce gun violence have been comprehensive, community-based initiatives like information, training, and storage campaigns, as well as gun buy-back programs, law enforcement campaigns and gun laws (Makarios & Pratt 223). These measures, combined with stricter measures of gun control and restriction of firearms, may help to provide comprehensive help to communities, combining the immediate restriction of gun violence with the socio-economic interventions that could prevent impoverished and desperate individuals from entering into a life of crime and gun violence in the first place. Gun violence is often inextricably linked to gang violence, particularly in major metropolitan areas. The Uniform Crime Reports group notes that Chicago, Illinois has an extremely high rate of crime, which increased with each year. In 2010 alone, 436 murders, 1,359 criminal sexual assaults, 14, 205 robberies, 74,561 thefts, nearly 20,000 car thefts and more were all committed in Chicago (Chicago Police Crime Summary, 2010). While this is notably a lower set of numbers than the Chicago crime figures in 2009, the overall trend of crime is increasing. Violent crime is down on the whole, but murders have gone up, particularly as they relate to shooting deaths (Fig.1). The West and South sides of Chicago, in particular, suffer from gang violence, due to the segregated nature of the city driven by systemic poverty and racial discrimination. One of the biggest controversies related to gun control is the issue of mental illness, and how that fits into the regulation of gun purchases. In many highly publicized shootings and massacres (e.g. Virginia Tech, or the attempted political assassinations of Ronald Reagan or Gabby Giffords), the individuals involved suffered from mental illness (Gostin & Record 2108). However, the simple existence of mental illness should not be considered a prediction of dangerousness, as there are many kinds of mental illness; there is also the issue of whether or not to release confidential medical data on a patient when it may come into play as a predictor of violence (Kellermann & Rivara 549). Furthermore, many “prohibited persons” such as those with mental illnesses, criminal records and the like, are often able to find ways around background checks as they are currently applied (2108). This is due to inefficient reporting of such individuals by state to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which allows some people to buy firearms when they should not be allowed to (2108). These inefficiencies must be put to a stop, with the help of stricter gun control legislation. In the absence of effective gun control legislation, social initiatives have begun to attempt to act as an alternative way to curb gun violence. Neighborhood watch organizations and the Chicago Police coordinate to attempt to report and discourage gun violence in neighborhoods, as well as citywide public initiatives to lower gang violence like the CeaseFire Program, amongst other youth pilot programs. The chief goal of these organizations is to treat gun violence as if it were a disease, treating it where it comes from – individual gun violence environments and the people involved in them. Through certain social initiatives, programs like CeaseFire seek to reduce risk to others by intervening and offering solutions to allow systemic socioeconomic factors to improve to the point where gun violence is less incentivized. Social support systems work with at-risk youth to prevent access to gangs, as well – with these programs and more, it may be possible to lower gun violence without dealing with the issue of restricting Constitutional rights. However, the effectiveness of these initiatives remains to be seen. One of the most frequently cited arguments against gun control is that citizens need to be able to purchase guns to keep in the home for self-defense. While this is a nice sentiment, and perhaps the most sensible, reasonable reason to keep a gun in the home, the realities of its effectiveness are a different story. According to research data, “for every self-defense homicide in the home, there were nearly five times as many domestic criminal homicides and 37 suicides,” making even successful instances of citizens defending their homes against intruders pale in comparison to the number of negative outcomes to firearms ownership (Brent et al. 33). Unlike America, many other countries have successfully placed firearms bans on their citizens in the wake of major shooting massacres; a 1996 Australian shooting of 35 people led to the nationwide passing of a ban on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns from the civilian population (Brent et al. 34). This proved successful, as there have been no shooting deaths in Australia in at least the past decade (34). If America were to follow the example of these other nations and institute substantial gun control measures, similar outcomes might occur. The true solution to how to address gun violence without using gun control has yet to be found; however, some critics believe that stricter gun control would lead to more problems than it starts. For example, Wilson argues that stronger gun control legislation would just add more paperwork and complications to an already convoluted process, which would solve none of the real problems of getting guns in the hands of criminals: "Legal restraints on the lawful purchase of guns will have little effect on the illegal use of guns" (Wilson, 1994). In essence, his argument is that gun control will simply take the legal guns out of the hands of citizens who acquired them legally, while doing nothing to prevent criminals from getting guns through other means. In instances such as these, gun control opponents believe in offering greater control to the police – by allowing them to take unlicensed firearms, some argue, fewer people will be killed: "The most effective way to reduce illegal gun-carrying is to encourage the police to take guns away from people who carry them without a permit" (Wilson, 1994). However, this touches on some other issues about the ethics of profiling, and the difficulty of finding reasonable grounds for performing a pat-down on a suspect. While gun control is an important measure, the way in which it is implemented must be carefully considered – these initiatives should not go so far as to create a police state. Gang violence, school shootings and crimes are not the only tragedies that would be prevented if gun control measures were passed. Suicide is one of the most commonplace kinds of preventable death in America, being the “8th leading cause of death for males, and the 19th leading cause for females” in the United States (Rodrigurez-Andres and Hempstead 2). Nearly half of all suicides are committed with a firearm, with 46 Americans every day committing suicide with a gun in 2006 (2). Research indicates a significant correlation between the prevalence of firearms and suicide rates, with reductions in firearms availability being significantly linked to lower rates of suicide (2). One of the most effective ways of facilitating suicide prevention, therefore, is facilitating stricter gun control laws – many people who commit suicide are able to get access to firearms far too easily, and would be discouraged from killing themselves if they were not given access to guns (16). Most specifically, research indicates that restricting access of firearms to minors and requiring permits are the most successful measures in suicide prevention; if suicide rates are to lower, these kinds of measures must be facilitated on a grander scale. The need for gun control is absolutely paramount, given this argument; however, there is still the issue of the constitutionality of gun control, which people may be opposed to. While some may rankle at the violation of their Second Amendment rights, one could argue that the right to bear arms was created with the original intent of creating a well-armed militia that could theoretically defend themselves from a tyrannical government. As that is an impossibility in today’s world (and is not often cited as a reason to curb gun control), it should not be a sufficient defense for allowing assault weapons to be readily available to the average citizen (Fig. 2). In order to best facilitate the implementation of gun control, specific policies should be outlined to make a comprehensive series of laws that would dramatically reduce gun violence and deaths. Universal background checks for all purchases of firearms should be instituted, as well as a blanket ban on assault weapons and firearms with high-capacity magazines (Brent et al. 34). Firearm safety measures should be increased, including screenings by physicians and psychologists to ensure people’s mental and physical acuity before being granted the ability to own a firearm. More preventive interventions such as creating interventions for at-risk youth (such as the aforementioned CeaseFire and other programs) will offer better socioeconomic conditions and alternatives for urban youth violence, curbing future violent behavior (Brent et al. 34). These initiatives may serve as a good start to addressing the substantial problems of gun violence in America, and can be expanded or modified as needed if they prove to be ineffective or overbearing. The aforementioned issues with gaps in background check efficiency can also be addressed through legislation punishing states who do not provide complete reports of prohibited persons to the NICS(Gostin & Record 2109). Given this evidence, it is clear that gun control is the most effective and substantive way to reduce gun violence and suicide in America. Gang violence and school shootings have become almost a daily occurrence in the United States, and so action must be taken as soon as possible to get as many guns as possible off the streets. At this point in American history, it is clear that the Second Amendment’s protections should be modified and reinterpreted so as to prevent Americans from having access to an arsenal of increasingly-powerful assault weapons, as that would reduce gun violence and make the nation a safer place in which to live. To that end, restricting assault weapon access, prompting universal background checks, offering health screening and interventions for youth at risk of violence or suicide and addressing the systemic factors that lead to gun violence are the most sensible and effective measures that should be taken to improve the safety of the American people.

Works Cited

Brent, David A., et al. "Ending the silence on gun violence." Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 52.4 (2013): 333. Chicago Police Department. (2010). “Crime summary.” Chicagopolice.org. 2010. <https://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Index%20Crime%20Statistics/2010%20Index%20Crime%20Statistics/mcsDec10%5B1%5D.pdf> Goss, Kristin A. Disarmed: The missing movement for gun control in America. Princeton Gostin, Lawrence O., and Katherine L. Record. "Dangerous people or dangerous weapons: access to firearms for persons with mental illness." JAMA 305.20 (2011): 2108-2109. KAL. Political Cartoon. Baltimore Sun (2014). Kates D.B., & Mauser, G. “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide? A review of international and some domestic evidence.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 30(2) (2007): 649-694. Kellermann, Arthur L., and Frederick P. Rivara. "Silencing the science on gun research." JAMA 309.6 (2013): 549-550. Makarios, Matthew D., and Travis C. Pratt. "The effectiveness of policies and programs that attempt to reduce firearm violence a meta-analysis." Crime & Delinquency 58.2 (2012): 222-244. Rodríguez Andrés, Antonio, and Katherine Hempstead. "Gun control and suicide: The impact of Wilson, J. “Just Take Away Their Guns.” New York Times, 1994. Zimring, F. “Is Gun Control Likely to Reduce Violent Killings?” University of Chicago Law Review 35(4) (1968): 721.

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Gun Control - Free Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

The topic of gun ownership is very relevant in modern society in the United States and is increasingly being discussed at different levels. This social issue has also seeped into educational structures, so students often have to write essays considering this topic.

It’s important to keep in mind some general requirements while writing a research paper on gun control. Amongst others are presenting your opinion about gun ownership, adding a topic sentence to structure your work, and starting every new idea with a new paragraph, you may also consult a specialist to know how to make an introduction, conclusion and outline for gun laws essay.

Get creative and speak up. Tell whether you believe weapons are necessary for defending yourself and being in safety, or on the contrary, you think guns may lead to a high school shooting or other crime and the law should go through a reform. Share if you see any solution — elaborate a thesis statement about gun control to consolidate your beliefs. You can find an argumentative essay on gun control in America to familiarize yourself with the main questions on the issue.

Weapon ownership being a social issue, is quite difficult to write about and is a topic that causes debate. So one should read a sample. For instance, we provide free persuasive essays about gun control to facilitate general comprehension. Don’t forget to take a look at gun control essay examples too before writing one, and a hook for gun rights essay may also be helpful.

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Related topic

How to write an essay about gun control, introduction to the complexities of gun control.

Gun control is a multifaceted and often contentious topic, making it an engaging subject for an essay. The introduction of your essay should begin by defining what gun control encompasses – including various laws, policies, and public opinions surrounding the regulation of firearms. It’s crucial to present the relevance of this topic, especially in the context of current events and societal debates. This section should set the stage for your essay, providing a brief overview of the different aspects of gun control you will explore, and subtly introducing your thesis statement. This groundwork is key to preparing the reader for a nuanced discussion on the complexities of gun control.

Building a Structured Argument

The body of your essay is where you’ll develop your argument, which should be clearly outlined in your thesis statement. Whether you’re examining the effectiveness of gun control measures, their impact on crime rates, or the constitutional debates surrounding the Second Amendment, each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect or argument supporting your thesis. Use evidence such as statistical data, historical examples, or case studies to reinforce your points. It’s also important to acknowledge and address counterarguments. By presenting a balanced view that considers multiple perspectives, your essay will be more persuasive and reflective of the multifaceted nature of the gun control debate.

Exploring the Broader Implications

Beyond the immediate arguments for and against gun control, your essay should delve into the broader implications of the topic. This includes examining how gun control policies affect different communities, the relationship between gun rights and public safety, and the cultural and political factors that influence the gun control debate. Discuss the ethical considerations involved, such as the balance between individual liberties and community safety. This section should encourage readers to think about gun control in a wider social, cultural, and ethical context, providing a deeper understanding of why it’s such a persistent and polarizing issue in society.

Concluding with Insight

In your conclusion, revisit the key points of your essay, tying them back to your thesis statement. This is your chance to underscore the significance of the topic and the strength of your argument. Offer a reflection on the potential future of gun control, considering recent developments and ongoing debates. You might also propose areas for further research or suggest ways in which the conversation around gun control can be advanced constructively. A strong conclusion will not only provide closure to your essay but will also leave the reader with lingering thoughts or questions, encouraging further contemplation and discussion on the topic of gun control.

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May 26, 2022

The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives

By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo

By The Editors

Black hand gun

Adam Gault/Getty Images

Editor’s Note (5/24/23): One year ago, on May 24, 2022, 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex . This piece by Scientific American's editors presents the case that simple gun laws can prevent future tragedies.

Some editorials simply hurt to write. This is one.

At least 19 elementary school children and two teachers are dead, many more are injured, and a grandmother is fighting for her life in Uvalde, Tex., all because a young man, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, decided to fire in a school.

On supporting science journalism

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By now, you know these facts: This killing spree was the largest school shooting since Sandy Hook. Law enforcement couldn’t immediately subdue the killer. In Texas, it’s alarmingly easy to buy and openly carry a gun . In the immediate hours after the shooting, President Biden demanded reform , again. Legislators demanded reform , again. And progun politicians turned to weathered talking points: arm teachers and build safer schools.

But rather than arm our teachers (who have enough to do without keeping that gun away from students and having to train like law enforcement to confront an armed attacker), rather than spend much-needed school dollars on more metal detectors instead of education, we need to make it harder to buy a gun. Especially the kind of weapons used by this killer and the white supremacist who killed 10 people grocery shopping in Buffalo . And we need to put a lasting stop to the political obstruction of taxpayer-funded research into gun-related injuries and deaths.

The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime . Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. Guns are a public health crisis , just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again.

In the U.S., we have existing infrastructure that we could easily emulate to make gun use safer: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . Created by Congress in 1970, this federal agency is tasked, among other things, with helping us drive a car safely. It gathers data on automobile deaths. It’s the agency that monitors and studies seat belt usage . While we track firearm-related deaths, no such safety-driven agency exists for gun use.

During the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to explore gun violence as a public health issue. After studies tied having a firearm to increased homicide risk , the National Rifle Association took action , spearheading the infamous Dickey Amendment, diverting gun research dollars and preventing federal funding from being used to promote gun control. For more than 20 years, research on gun violence in this country has been hard to do.

What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.

While cars have become increasingly safer (it’s one of the auto industry’s main talking points in marketing these days), the gun lobby has thwarted nearly all attempts to make it harder to fire a weapon. With federal protection against some lawsuits , the financial incentive of a giant tort payout to make guns safer is virtually nonexistent.

After the Uvalde killings, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton , said he’d “rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens.” Sen. Ted Cruz emphasized “armed law enforcement on the campus.” They are two of many conservatives who see more guns as the key to fighting gun crime. They are wrong.

A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.

As we previously reported , in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide . Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up . These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.

Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent . Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.

Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. But it would require elected officials to detach themselves from the gun lobby. There are so many issues to consider when voting, but in this midterm election year, we believe that protection from gun violence is one that voters could really advance. Surveys routinely show that gun control measures are extremely popular with the U.S. population.

In the meantime, there is some hope. Congress restored funding for gun-related research in 2019, and there are researchers now looking at ways to reduce gun deaths. But it’s unclear if this change in funding is permanent. And what we’ve lost is 20 years of data on gun injuries, death, safety measures and a score of other things that could make gun ownership in this country safer.

Against all this are families whose lives will never be the same because of gun violence. Who must mourn children and adults lost in domestic violence, accidental killings and mass shootings that are so common, we are still grieving one when the next one occurs.

We need to become the kind of country that looks at guns for what they are: weapons that kill. And treat them with the kind of respect that insists they be harder to get and safer to use.

And then we need to become the kind of country that says the lives of children are more valuable than the right to weapons that have killed them, time and again. Since Columbine. Since Sandy Hook. Since always.

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20 brilliant topics for your gun control research paper.

gun control research paper

A research paper about gun control is perhaps one of the most critical essays, especially for students residing in the US for several reasons.

First, this essay touches on a subject with a lot of contention from various religious, political, socio-economic, and cultural sectors. Similarly, a gun control paper is sensitive as the underlying factor here is life. Therefore, this is not your usual fairy tale or bedtime story.

In this paper, we zoom in our lenses to the gun control topics for a research paper. However, before we get into that exciting bit, here is something to water your mouth.

Gun Control Research Paper Outline

The essay follows the structure of a usual argumentative essay type. The following parts of the outline should are necessary:

  • An Introduction

It contains a piece of brief background information followed by your gun control research paper thesis statement.

It is where you get to argue for are against gun control with factual and reliable pieces of evidence and examples.

  • The Conclusion

Now, this is what we have all been anticipating for:

Gun Control Research Paper Sample

The last year in the United States has been a truly awful period for mass shootings. It is not that they did not occur prior to this year that is the reason for concern, but that hitherto they have not seemed like something that is simply going to happen regularly. Today they seem exactly like that. Many solutions have been proposed for this epidemic. One of the most important of these is gun control. Gun control, as the term is understood here, means the institution of one or more restrictions on who is able to purchase a gun in the U.S. Two arguments will be made. First, it will be shown that the Second Amendment, so often touted by the gun lobby and the millions who unreflectively support its ideals, actually confers no rights whatsoever on today’s would-be gun owners. Second, some of the most important arguments against gun control will be countered. It is doubtful whether any single sentence in the Constitution, or its many amendments, has caused more mischief than the sentence which constitutes the Second Amendment. It reads, it total, as follows: “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” (Second Amendment). There are three points to note about this sentence. First, it is obvious that a “well regulated militia” is not necessary to the security of a free state (whatever this might mean today). This point alone strongly suggests that the Second Amendment is simply an archaic curiosity that has no relevance to the U.S. today. Second, the term “well regulated” is explicit in the Amendment. However, every single regulation, or restriction, that has been proposed for guns in the U.S. has been vehemently opposed by those who shamelessly appeal to the Second Amendment to support their views. Finally, there were three reasons that a person, or a militia, might have been deemed necessary when the Constitution was drafted: (a) to deal with runaway slaves; (b) to deal with unruly Native Americans; and (c) to deal with foreign powers. None of these three reasons has any application whatever today. One last point about the Constitution is that it is, quite literally, a simple mistake to think that in the U.S. today it is the Second Amendment to the Constitution that provides us with the right to keep and bear arms. As we have just seen, the Second Amendment is irrelevant. It is the Supreme Court, in D.C. v. Heller (2008), that provides this supposed right. The majority held that they had insight into the founding fathers’ intentions that allowed them to extrapolate from the language of the Second Amendment to a right to bear arms. There are many other arguments that have been given in favor of opposition to gun control. Only three of these can be discussed here. The first is a reason that one hears almost automatically, after every mass shooting. It is that the solution to the problem is not to take away people’s rights. This argument is worthless. Consider a situation in which people are allowed to purchase and use nuclear weapons as they see fit. Now suppose that a person uses a nuclear weapon to commit one atrocity or another. What would you say to the argument that, as bad as the consequences of citizens using nuclear weapons are, the solution is not to start taking away our rights to own and use nuclear weapons? The second argument is that guns do not kill people, only people do. It is supposed to follow from this that gun control is irrational, essentially putting the blame where it does not belong. This is a difficult argument to counter, mostly because there is a clear sense in which it is true that guns do not kill people. The argument is best approached indirectly. The United States is the only country in the world in which mass shootings are now commonplace. It is also the only country in the world in which people are obsessed with their right to own guns. The anti-gun control position must, as a matter of simple logic, hold that these two facts are not essentially related to each other—that it is a mere coincidence our obsession with guns occurs in a country where mass shootings are now commonplace. This is self-evidently absurd. The third and final argument against gun control is that there is a kind of potential slippery-slope involved in the government deciding to “limit our Second Amendment rights”. The idea is that if we allow them to limit our rights in this way, there is no telling where they will stop—will they then decide to limit our rights to free speech, or freedom of religion? This is possibly the worst of the arguments against gun control. One point is that gun control would not be a limit upon our rights—it would be a determination that we do not in fact have some of the rights that we mistakenly thought we did. Another point is that it is simply absurd to think that gun control would lead to a curtailment of other freedoms. If America ever sobers up enough to enact gun control measures, it will be a miracle. It will be only because it was somehow realized that mass shootings and allowing anyone to purchase a gun are closely related phenomena. Like many arguments against gun control, this one fantasizes about a specific divergence of interest between the government and the individual that simply does not exist. The government certainly wants to exploit the individual. But it does not do so, at least since the 1960s, by legislating against our rights.

The Best 20 Topics on Gun Control with Short Arguments

The titles used for a gun control research paper should be picked as seen below:

  • The politics behind the gun control

Show how various politicians are using this subject to further their agenda and propaganda, especially during and before elections.

  • Crime rates and gun control

When arguing for this topic, use various social crimes, including killings that have come up in connection to guns.

  • The gun control act of 1968

Deal with the implications of this act on the ownership of guns. How has this act led to the current situation?

  • Guns and suicide

It is a pro-gun control research paper that will focus on how guns have contributed to suicidal cases in the country; thus, why there should be a control.

  • The victims and beneficiaries of gun control

Explore both points on pro-gun control, for the beneficiaries and anti-gun control effects for the victims.

  • The psychology related to gun ownership

Identify and show how possessions of firearms have contributed to fear, risk, and anxiety among different members of society.

  • How mass shootings have encouraged gun control

It is a pro-gun control paper pointing out how the mass shootings in schools, malls, military bases, and parks contributed to these stringent measures.

  • Gun Control: Is it really about the people?

Explore the various ways in which the gun control policy is benefitting the people in society. Give details on what has changed among the people with the enactment of such a system.

  • State Implementation of Background Checks

Is the state enforcing this policy with the utmost precision and objectivity as it ought to do?

  • Media and gun control

How has the media contributed to the spread and conceptualization of this policy? Is it working for or against such a system?

  • The 2018 Valentine’s Day high school shooting in Parkland, Florida

What are some of the implications that came with this event? How did this event impact the gun control policy?

  • Terrorist groups and gun control

How has this policy helped to reduce terrorism activities? Give statistics on terrorism activities before and after the system.

  • Religion and gun control

Does religion permit gun ownership? What is the impact?

  • The Bill of Rights

It is an anti-gun control research paper showing how human rights are limited with such a measure.

  • Evidence that guns reduce crime

How do people use guns for self-defense and hence lower crime rates?

  • The Second Amendment of the Constitution

How no-restrictions for citizens to carry arms is undermined by this policy.

  • The Profile of people committing a crime

Is it supporting the theory that people with firearms are the leading crime operators?

  • Health and gun control

How this policy applies to this with mental health disorders

  • Age and gun ownership

Why gun control is applicable depending on age

  • Public education

The list of topics on this interesting research paper is endless.

Do you need any writing help ranging from but not limited to gun control thesis statement for a research paper or more? Contact us today.

American Government Research Paper Topics

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  • Published: 10 December 2019

The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning

  • Joseph M. Pierre 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  5 , Article number:  159 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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The gun debate in America is often framed as a stand-off between two immutable positions with little potential to move ahead with meaningful legislative reform. Attempts to resolve this impasse have been thwarted by thinking about gun ownership attitudes as based on rational choice economics instead of considering the broader socio-cultural meanings of guns. In this essay, an additional psychological perspective is offered that highlights how concerns about victimization and mass shootings within a shared culture of fear can drive cognitive bias and motivated reasoning on both sides of the gun debate. Despite common fears, differences in attitudes and feelings about guns themselves manifest in variable degrees of support for or opposition to gun control legislation that are often exaggerated within caricatured depictions of polarization. A psychological perspective suggests that consensus on gun legislation reform can be achieved through understanding differences and diversity on both sides of the debate, working within a common middle ground, and more research to resolve ambiguities about how best to minimize fear while maximizing personal and public safety.

Discounting risk

Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Answers to that riddle draw a bright line between two sides of a caricatured debate about guns in polarized America. One side believes that guns are a menace to public safety, while the other believes that they are an essential tool of self-preservation. One side cannot fathom why more gun control legislation has not been passed in the wake of a disturbing rise in mass shootings in the US and eyes Australia’s 1996 sweeping gun reform and New Zealand’s more recent restrictions with envy. The other, backed by the Constitutional right to bear arms and the powerful lobby of the National Rifle Association (NRA), fears the slippery slope of legislative change and refuses to yield an inch while threatening, “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”. With the nation at an impasse, meaningful federal gun legislation aimed at reducing firearm violence remains elusive.

Despite the 1996 Dickey Amendment’s restriction of federal funding for research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Rostron, 2018 ), more than 30 years of public health research supports thinking of guns as statistically more of a personal hazard than a benefit. Case-control studies have repeatedly found that gun ownership is associated with an increased risk of gun-related homicide or suicide occurring in the home (Kellermann and Reay, 1986 ; Kellermann et al., 1993 ; Cummings and Koepsell, 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ; Dahlberg et al., 2004 ; Hemenway, 2011 ; Anglemeyer et al., 2014 ). For homicides, the association is largely driven by gun-related violence committed by family members and other acquaintances, not strangers (Kellermann et al., 1993 , 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ).

If having a gun increases the risk of gun-related violent death in the home, why do people choose to own guns? To date, the prevailing answer from the public health literature has been seemingly based on a knowledge deficit model that assumes that gun owners are unaware of risks and that repeated warnings about “overwhelming evidence” of “the health risk of a gun in the home [being] greater than the benefit” (Hemenway, 2011 ) should therefore decrease gun ownership and increase support for gun legislation reform. And yet, the rate of US households with guns has held steady for two decades (Smith and Son, 2015 ) with owners amassing an increasing number of guns such that the total civilian stock has risen to some 265 million firearms (Azrael et al., 2017 ). This disparity suggests that the knowledge deficit model is inadequate to explain or modify gun ownership.

In contrast to the premise that people weigh the risks and benefits of their behavior based on “rational choice economics” (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ), nearly 50 years of psychology and behavioral economics research has instead painted a picture of human decision-making as a less than rational process based on cognitive short-cuts (“availability heuristics”) and other error-prone cognitive biases (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974 ; Kunda, 1990 ; Haselton and Nettle, 2006 ; Hibert, 2012 ). As a result, “consequentialist” approaches to promoting healthier choices are often ineffective. Following this perspective, recent public health efforts have moved beyond educational campaigns to apply an understanding of the psychology of risky behavior to strike a balance between regulation and behavioral “nudges” aimed at reducing harmful practices like smoking, unhealthy eating, texting while driving, and vaccine refusal (Atchley et al., 2011 ; Hansen et al., 2016 ; Matjasko et al., 2016 ; Pluviano et al., 2017 ).

A similar public health approach aimed at reducing gun violence should take into account how gun owners discount the risks of ownership according to cognitive biases and motivated reasoning. For example, cognitive dissonance may lead those who already own guns to turn a blind eye to research findings about the dangers of ownership. Optimism bias, the general tendency of individuals to overestimate good outcomes and underestimate bad outcomes, can likewise make it easy to disregard dangers by externalizing them to others. The risk of suicide can therefore be dismissed out of hand based on the rationale that “it will never happen to me,” while the risk of homicide can be discounted based on demographic factors. Kleck and Gertz ( 1998 ) noted that membership in street gangs and drug dealing might be important confounds of risk in case control studies, just as unsafe storage practices such as keeping a firearm loaded and unlocked may be another (Kellerman et al., 1993 ). Other studies have found that the homicide risk associated with guns in the home is greater for women compared to men and for non-whites compared to whites (Wiebe, 2003 ). Consequently, white men—by far the largest demographic that owns guns—might be especially likely to think of themselves as immune to the risks of gun ownership and, through confirmation bias, cherry-pick the data to support pre-existing intuitions and fuel motivated disbelief about guns. These testable hypotheses warrant examination in future research aimed at understanding the psychology of gun ownership and crafting public health approaches to curbing gun violence.

Still, while the role of cognitive biases should be integrated into a psychological understanding of attitudes towards gun ownership, cognitive biases are universal liabilities that fall short of explaining why some people might “employ” them as a part of motivated reasoning to support ownership or to oppose gun reform. To understand the underlying motivation that drives cognitive bias, a deeper analysis of why people own guns is required. In the introductory essay to this journal’s series on “What Guns Mean,” Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that public health efforts to reduce firearm ownership have failed to “address beliefs about guns among people who own them”. In a follow-up piece, Galea and Abdalla ( 2019 ) likewise suggested that the gun debate is complicated by the fact that “knowledge and values do not align” and that “these values create an impasse, one where knowing is not enough” (Galea and Abdalla, 2019 ). Indeed, these and other authors (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Braman and Kahan, 2006 ; Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ) have enumerated myriad beliefs and values, related to the different “symbolic lives” and “social meanings” of firearms both within and outside of “gun culture” that drive polarized attitudes towards gun ownership in the US. This essay attempts to further explore the meaning of guns from a psychological perspective.

Fear and gun ownership

Modern psychological understanding of human decision-making has moved beyond availability heuristics and cognitive biases to integrate the role of emotion and affect. Several related models including the “risk-as-feelings hypothesis” (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ), the “affect heuristic” (Slovic et al., 2007 ); and the “appraisal-tendency framework” (Lerner et al., 2015 ) illustrate how emotions can hijack rational-decision-making processes to the point of being the dominant influence on risk assessments. Research has shown that “perceived risk judgments”—estimates of the likelihood that something bad will happen—are especially hampered by emotion (Pachur et al., 2012 ) and that different types of affect can bias such judgments in different ways (Lerner et al., 2015 ). For example, fear can in particular bias assessments away from rational analysis to overestimate risks, as well as to perceive negative events as unpredictable (Lerner et al., 2015 ).

Although gun ownership is associated with positive feelings about firearms within “gun culture” (Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ; Metzl, 2019 ), most research comparing gun owners to non-gun owners suggests that ownership is rooted in fear. While long guns have historically been owned primarily for hunting and other recreational purposes, US surveys dating back to the 1990s have revealed that the most frequent reason for gun ownership and more specifically handgun ownership is self-protection (Cook and Ludwig, 1997 ; Azrael et al., 2017 ; Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Research has likewise shown that the decision to obtain a firearm is largely motivated by past victimization and/or fears of future victimization (Kleck et al., 2011 ; Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ).

A few studies have reported that handgun ownership is associated with past victimization, perceived risk of crime, and perceived ineffectiveness of police protection within low-income communities where these concerns may be congruent with real risks (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 , 2004 ). However, gun ownership tends to be lower in urban settings and in low-income families where there might be higher rates of violence and crime (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 ). Instead, the largest demographic of gun owners in the US are white men living in rural communities who are earning more than $100K/year (Azrael et al., 2017 ). Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) likewise reported that gun owners tend to have higher incomes and greater ratings of life happiness than non-owners. These findings suggest a mismatch between subjective fear and objective reality.

Stroebe and colleagues ( 2017 ) reported that the specific perceived risk of victimization and more “diffuse” fears that the world is a dangerous place are both independent predictors of handgun ownership, with perceived risk of assault associated with having been or knowing a victim of violent crime and belief in a dangerous world associated with political conservatism. These findings hint at the likelihood that perceived risk of victimization can be based on vicarious sources with a potential for bias, whether through actual known acquaintances or watching the nightly news, conducting a Google search or scanning one’s social media feed, or reading “The Armed Citizen” column in the NRA newsletter The American Rifleman . It also suggests that a general fear of crime, independent of actual or even perceived individual risk, may be a powerful motivator for gun ownership for some that might track with race and political ideology.

Several authors have drawn a connection between gun ownership and racial tensions by examining the cultural symbolism and socio-political meaning of guns. Bhatia ( 2019 ) detailed how the NRA’s “disinformation campaign reliant on fearmongering” is constructed around a narrative of “fear and identity politics” that exploits current xenophobic sentiments related to immigrants. Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that during the 1960s, conservatives were uncharacteristically in favor of gun control when armed resistance was promoted by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, and others involved in the Black Power Movement. Today, Metzl argues, “mainstream society reflexively codes white men carrying weapons in public as patriots, while marking armed black men as threats or criminals.” In support of this view, a 2013 study found that having a gun in the home was significantly associated with racism against black people as measured by the Symbolic Racism Scale, noting that “for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% greater odds of having a gun in the home and a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns” (O’Brien et al., 2013 ). Hypothesizing that guns are a symbol of hegemonic masculinity that serves to “shore up white male privilege in society,” Stroud ( 2012 ) interviewed a non-random sample of 20 predominantly white men in Texas who had licenses for concealed handgun carry. The men described how guns help to fulfill their identities as protectors of their families, while characterizing imagined dangers with rhetoric suggesting specific fears about black criminals. These findings suggest that gun ownership among white men may be related to a collective identity as “good guys” protecting themselves against “bad guys” who are people of color, a premise echoed in the lay press with headlines like, “Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?” (Smith, 2018 ), “Report: White Men Stockpile Guns Because They’re Afraid of Black People” (Harriott, 2018 ), and “Gun Rights Are About Keeping White Men on Top” (Wuertenberg, 2018 ).

Connecting the dots, the available evidence therefore suggests that for many gun owners, fears about victimization can result in confirmation, myside, and optimism biases that not only discount the risks of ownership, but also elevate the salience of perceived benefit, however remote, as it does when one buys a lottery ticket (Rogers and Webley, 2001 ). Indeed, among gun owners there is widespread belief that having a gun makes one safer, supported by published claims that where there are “more guns”, there is “less crime” (Lott, 1998 , 1999 ) as well as statistics and anecdotes about successful defensive gun use (DGU) (Kleck and Gertz, 1995 , 1998 ; Tark and Kleck, 2004 ; Cramer and Burnett, 2012 ). Suffice it to say that there have been numerous debates about how to best interpret this body of evidence, with critics claiming that “more guns, less crime” is a myth (Ayres and Donohue, 2003 ; Moyer, 2017 ) that has been “discredited” (Wintemute, 2008 ) and that the incidence of DGU has been grossly overestimated and pales in comparison to the risk of being threatened or harmed by a gun in the home (Hemenway, 1997 , 2011 ; Cook and Ludwig, 1998 ; Azrael and Hemenway, 2000 ; Hemenway et al., 2000 ). Attempts at objective analysis have concluded that surveys to date have defined and measured DGU inconsistently with unclear numbers of false positives and false negatives (Smith, 1997 ; McDowall et al., 2000 ; National Research Council, 2005 ; RAND, 2018 ), that the causal effects of DGU on reducing injury are “inconclusive” (RAND, 2018 ), and that “neither side seems to be willing to give ground or see their opponent’s point of view” (Smith, 1997 ). With the scientific debate about DGU mirrored in the lay press (Defilippis and Hughes, 2015 ; Kleck, 2015 ; Doherty, 2015 ), a rational assessment of whether guns make owners safer is hampered by a lack of “settled science”. With no apparent consensus, motivated reasoning can pave the way to the nullification of opposing arguments in favor of personal opinions and ideological stances.

For gun owners, even if it is acknowledged that on average successful DGU is much less likely than a homicide or suicide in the home, not having a gun at all translates to zero chance of self-preservation, which are intolerable odds. The bottom line is that when gun owners believe that owning a gun will make them feel safer, little else may matter. Curiously however, there is conflicting evidence that gun ownership actually decreases fears of victimization (Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ; Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ). That gun ownership may not mitigate such fears could help to account for why some individuals go on to acquire multiple guns beyond their initial purchase with US gun owners possessing an average of 5 firearms and 8% of owners having 10 or more (Azrael et al., 2017 ).

Gun owner diversity

A psychological model of the polarized gun debate in America would ideally compare those for or against gun control legislation. However, research to date has instead focused mainly on differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, which has several limitations. For example, of the nearly 70% of Americans who do not own a gun, 36% report that they can see themselves owning one in the future (Pew Research Center, 2017 ) with 11.5% of all gun owners in 2015 having newly acquired one in the previous 5 years (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Gun ownership and non-ownership are therefore dynamic states that may not reflect static ideology. Personal accounts such as Willis’ ( 2010 ) article, “I Was Anti-gun, Until I Got Stalked,” illustrate this point well.

With existing research heavily reliant on comparing gun owners to non-gun owners, a psychological model of gun attitudes in the US will have limited utility if it relies solely on gun owner stereotypes based on their most frequent demographic characteristics. On the contrary, Hauser and Kleck ( 2013 ) have argued that “a more complete understanding of the relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership at the individual level is crucial”. Just so, looking more closely at the diversity of gun owners can reveal important details beyond the kinds of stereotypes that are often used to frame political debates.

Foremost, it must be recognized that not all gun owners are conservative white men with racist attitudes. Over the past several decades, women have comprised 9–14% of US gun owners with the “gender gap” narrowing due to decreasing male ownership (Smith and Son, 2015 ). A 2017 Pew Survey reported that 22% of women in the US own a gun and that female gun owners are just as likely as men to belong to the NRA (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Although the 36% rate of gun ownership among US whites is the highest for any racial demographic, 25% of blacks and 15% of Hispanics report owning guns with these racial groups being significantly more concerned than whites about gun violence in their communities and the US as a whole (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Providing a striking counterpoint to Stroud’s ( 2012 ) interviews of white gun owners in Texas, Craven ( 2017 ) interviewed 11 black gun owners across the country who offered diverse views on guns and the question of whether owning them makes them feel safer, including if confronted by police during a traffic stop. Kelly ( 2019 ) has similarly offered a self-portrait as a female “left-wing anarchist” against the stereotype of guns owners as “Republicans, racist libertarians, and other generally Constitution-obsessed weirdos”. She reminds us that, “there is also a long history of armed community self-defense among the radical left that is often glossed over or forgotten entirely in favor of the Fox News-friendly narrative that all liberals hate guns… when the cops and other fascists see that they’re not the only ones packing, the balance of power shifts, and they tend to reconsider their tactics”.

Although Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) concluded that “white men in economic distress find comfort in guns as a means to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude,” their study results actually demonstrated that gun owners fall into distinguishable groups based on different levels of “moral and emotional empowerment” imparted by guns. For example, those with low levels of gun empowerment were more likely to be female and to own long guns for recreational purposes such as hunting and collecting. Other research has shown that the motivations to own a gun, and the degree to which gun ownership is related to fear and the desire for self-protection, also varies according to the type of gun (Stroebe et al., 2017 ). Owning guns, owning specific types of guns (e.g. handguns, long guns, and so-called “military style” semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s), carrying a gun in public, and keeping a loaded gun on one’s nightstand all have different psychological implications. A 2015 study reported that new gun owners were younger and more likely to identify as liberal than long-standing gun owners (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Although Kalesan et al. ( 2016 ) found that gun ownership is more likely among those living within a “gun culture” where ownership is prevalent, encouraged, and part of social life, it would therefore be a mistake to characterize gun culture as a monolith.

It would also be a mistake to equate gun ownership with opposition to gun legislation reform or vice-versa. Although some evidence supports a strong association (Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998 ), more recent studies suggest important exceptions to the rule. While only about 30% of the US population owns a gun, over 70% believes that most citizens should be able to legally own them (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Women tend to be more likely than men to support gun control, even when they are gun owners themselves (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Mencken and Froese, 2019 ). Older (age 70–79) Americans likewise have some of the highest rates of gun ownership, but also the highest rates of support for gun control (Pederson et al., 2015 ). In Mencken and Froese’s study ( 2019 ), most gun owners reporting lower levels of gun empowerment favored bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines and opposed arming teachers in schools. Kahan and Braman ( 2003 ) theorized that attitudes towards gun control are best understood according to a “cultural theory of risk”. In their study sample, those with “hierarchical” and “individualist” cultural orientations were more likely than those with “egalitarian” views to oppose gun control and these perspectives were more predictive than other variables including political affiliation and fear of crime.

In fact, both gun owners and non-owners report high degrees of support for universal background checks; laws mandating safe gun storage in households with children; and “red flag” laws restricting access to firearms for those hospitalized for mental illness or those otherwise at risk of harming themselves or others, those convicted of certain crimes including public display of a gun in a threatening manner, those subject to temporary domestic violence restraining orders, and those on “no-fly” or other watch lists (Pew Research Center, 2017 ; Barry et al., 2018 ). According to a 2015 survey, the majority of the US public also opposes carrying firearms in public spaces with most gun owners opposing public carry in schools, college campuses, places of worship, bars, and sports stadiums (Wolfson et al., 2017 ). Despite broad public support for gun legislation reform however, it is important to recognize that the threat of gun restrictions is an important driver of gun acquisition (Wallace, 2015 ; Aisch and Keller, 2016 ). As a result, proposals to restrict gun ownership boosted gun sales considerably under the Obama administration (Depetris-Chauvin, 2015 ), whereas gun companies like Remington and United Sporting Companies have since filed for bankruptcy under the Trump administration.

A shared culture of fear

Developing a psychological understanding of attitudes towards guns and gun control legislation in the US that accounts for underlying emotions, motivated reasoning, and individual variation must avoid the easy trap of pathologizing gun owners and dismissing their fears as irrational. Instead, it should consider the likelihood that motivated reasoning underlies opinion on both sides of the gun debate, with good reason to conclude that fear is a prominent source of both “pro-gun” and “anti-gun” attitudes. Although the research on fear and gun ownership summarized above implies that non-gun owners are unconcerned about victimization, a closer look at individual study data reveals both small between-group differences and significant within-group heterogeneity. For example, Stroebe et al.’s ( 2017 ) findings that gun owners had greater mean ratings of belief in a dangerous world, perceived risk of victimization, and the perceived effectiveness of owning a gun for self-defense were based on inter-group differences of <1 point on a 7-point Likert scale. Fear of victimization is therefore a universal fear for gun owners and non-gun owners alike, with important differences in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of those fears. Kahan and Braham ( 2003 ) noted that the gun debate is not so much a debate about the personal risks of gun ownership, as it is a one about which of two potential fears is most salient—that of “firearm casualties in a world with insufficient gun control or that of personal defenselessness in a world with excessive control”.

Although this “shared fear” hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested in existing research, there is general support for it based on evidence that fear is an especially potent influence on risk assessment and decision-making when considering low-frequency catastrophic events (Chanel et al., 2009 ). In addition, biased risk assessments have been linked to individual feelings about a specific activity. Whereas many activities in the real world have both high risk and high benefit, positive attitudes about an activity are associated with biased judgments of low risk and high benefit while negative attitudes are associated with biased judgments of high risk and low benefit (Slovic et al., 2007 ). These findings match those of the gun debate, whereby catastrophic events like mass shootings can result in “probability neglect,” over-estimating the likelihood of risk (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ) with polarized differences regarding guns as a root cause and gun control as a viable solution. For those that have positive feelings about guns and their perceived benefit, the risk of gun ownership is minimized as discussed above. However, based on findings from psychological research on fear (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ; Slovic et al., 2007 ), the reverse is also likely to be true—those with negative feelings about guns who perceive little benefit to ownership may tend to over-estimate risks. Consistent with this dichotomy, both calls for legislative gun reform, as well as gun purchases increase in the wake of mass shootings (Wallace, 2015 ; Wozniak, 2017 ), with differences primarily predicted by the relative self-serving attributional biases of gun ownership and non-ownership alike (Joslyn and Haider-Markel, 2017 ).

Psychological research has shown that fear is associated with loss of control, with risks that are unfamiliar and uncontrollable perceived as disproportionately dangerous (Lerner et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 2003 ). Although mass shootings have increased in recent years, they remain extremely rare events and represent a miniscule proportion of overall gun violence. And yet, as acts of terrorism, they occur in places like schools that are otherwise thought of as a suburban “safe spaces,” unlike inner cities where violence is more mundane, and are often given sensationalist coverage in the media. A 2019 Harris Poll found that 79% of Americans endorse stress as a result of the possibility of a mass shooting, with about a third reporting that they “cannot go anywhere without worrying about being a victim” (American Psychological Association, 2019 ). While some evidence suggests that gun owners may be more concerned about mass shootings than non-gun owners (Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ), this is again a quantitative difference as with fear of victimization more generally. There is little doubt that parental fears about children being victims of gun violence were particularly heightened in the wake of Columbine (Altheide, 2019 ) and it is likely that subsequent school shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Stoneman Douglas High have been especially impactful in the minds of those calling for increasing restrictions on gun ownership. For those privileged to be accustomed to community safety who are less worried about home invasion and have faith in the police to provide protection, fantasizing about “gun free zones” may reflect a desire to recreate safe spaces in the wake of mass shootings that invoke feelings of loss of control.

Altheide ( 2019 ) has argued that mass shootings in the US post-Columbine have been embedding within a larger cultural narrative of terrorism, with “expanded social control and policies that helped legitimate the war on terror”. Sunstein and Zeckhauser ( 2011 ) have similarly noted that following terrorist attacks, the public tends to demand responses from government, favoring precautionary measures that are “not justified by any plausible analysis of expected utility” and over-estimating potential benefits. However, such responses may not only be ineffective, but potentially damaging. For example, although collective anxieties in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in the rapid implementation of new screening procedures for boarding airplanes, it has been argued that the “theater” of response may have done well to decrease fear without any evidence of actual effectiveness in reducing danger (Graham, 2019 ) while perhaps even increasing overall mortality by avoiding air travel in favor of driving (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ).

As with the literature on DGU, the available evidence supporting the effectiveness of specific gun laws in reducing gun violence is less than definitive (Koper et al., 2004 ; Hahn et al., 2005 ; Lee et al., 2017 ; Webster and Wintemute, 2015 ), leaving the utility of gun reform legislation open to debate and motivated reasoning. Several authors have argued that even if proposed gun control measures are unlikely to deter mass shooters, “doing something is better than nothing” (Fox and DeLateur, 2014 ) and that ineffective counter-terrorism responses are worthwhile if they reduce public fear (Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ). Crucially however, this perspective fails to consider the impact of gun control legislation on the fears of those who value guns for self-protection. For them, removing guns from law-abiding “good guys” while doing nothing to deter access to the “bad guys” who commit crimes is illogical anathema. Gun owners and gun advocates likewise reject the concept of “safe spaces” and regard the notion of “gun free zones” as a liability that invites rather than prevents acts of terrorism. In other words, gun control proposals designed to decrease fear have the opposite of their intended effect on those who view guns as symbols of personal safety, increasing rather than decreasing their fears independently of any actual effects on gun violence. Such policies are therefore non-starters, and will remain non-starters, for the sizeable proportion of Americans who regard guns as essential for self-preservation.

In 2006, Braman and Kahan noted that “the Great American Gun Debate… has convulsed the national polity for the better part of four decades without producing results satisfactory to either side” and argued that consequentialist arguments about public health risks based on cost–benefit analysis are trumped by the cultural meanings of guns to the point of being “politically inert” (Braman and Kahan, 2006 ). More than a decade later, that argument is iterated in this series on “What Guns Mean”. In this essay, it is further argued that persisting debates about the effectiveness of DGU and gun control legislation are at their heart trumped by shared concerns about personal safety, victimization, and mass shootings within a larger culture of fear, with polarized opinions about how to best mitigate those fears that are determined by the symbolic, cultural, and personal meanings of guns and gun ownership.

Coming full circle to the riddle, “Do guns kill people or do people kill people?”, a psychologically informed perspective rejects the question as a false dichotomy that can be resolved by the statement, “people kill people… with guns”. It likewise suggests a way forward by acknowledging both common fears and individual differences beyond the limited, binary caricature of the gun debate that is mired in endless arguments over disputed facts. For meaningful legislative change to occur, the debate must be steered away from its portrayal as two immutable sides caught between not doing anything on the one hand and enacting sweeping bans or repealing the 2nd Amendment on the other. In reality, public attitudes towards gun control are more nuanced than that, with support or opposition to specific gun control proposals predicted by distinct psychological and cultural factors (Wozniak, 2017 ) such that achieving consensus may prove less elusive than is generally assumed. Accordingly, gun reform proposals should focus on “low hanging fruit” where there is broad support such as requiring and enforcing universal background checks, enacting “red flag” laws balanced by guaranteeing gun ownership rights to law-abiding citizens, and implementing public safety campaigns that promote safe firearm handling and storage. Finally, the Dickey Amendment should be repealed so that research can inform public health interventions aimed at reducing gun violence and so that individuals can replace motivated reasoning with evidence-based decision-making about personal gun ownership and guns in society.

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Pierre, J.M. The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning. Palgrave Commun 5 , 159 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0373-z

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There are approximately as many guns in civilian hands in the United States as there are people, more than 250 million (Kleck, pp. 96– 97). Most are rifles and shotguns used primarily for recreation, but a growing proportion, perhaps one-third, are handguns, which are usually purchased for personal or home defense. Between the late 1960s and late 1970s, violent crime rates in the United States increased very rapidly. The robbery rate increased nearly six-fold, and the murder rate nearly doubled, peaking at about 10 in 100,000 in 1979 (Polsby). During this same period, the American public rapidly acquired an inventory of tens of millions of new handguns, as well as even more rifles and shotguns. Many opinion leaders blamed the escalating rates of violent crime on the increased private ownership of firearms, and proposed various kinds of gun control laws to deal with the problem.

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Four main policies constitute gun control as the term is used in common conversation:

  • Laws and regulations meant to prohibit, or to impose regulatory burdens on, civilian importation, manufacture, sale, or possession of certain weapons or classes of weapons;
  • Laws requiring people who want to buy firearms to wait out a ‘‘cooling off ’’ period between purchasing a weapon and taking

delivery of it;

  • Laws requiring people who want to buy firearms to undergo background checks to ensure that they are not legally ineligible for some reason, such as having a criminal record, to purchase or own such weapons;
  • Efforts by municipalities and occasionally by private philanthropies to buy guns from members of the public at a stated price with no questions asked (often called gun buyback programs).

Many other sorts of efforts by the criminal justice system to deter or minimize the abuse of firearms, such as aggravating punishments for the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, or directly confronting and discouraging potential abusers of firearms, are practically never called ‘‘gun control.’’ ‘‘Gun control,’’ in other words, usually refers to the set of public policies whose main purpose is suppress or slow down the supply of firearms to the general public. It usually does not include the (much less politically controversial) policies meant to reduce potential abusers’ demand for firearms.

Gun control laws usually are based on the assumption that there is a regular relationship between the availability of weapons to members of the general public and the rate at which crimes, especially homicides and suicides, occur in a given population. Numerous scholars have made some version of this claim (e.g., Zimring; Cook; Kellermann and Reay; Duggan). Note that this claim is not that better-armed populations are automatically more criminous than less well armed populations, as there may be many other differences, such as age, income, wealth, education, and so on, that much more powerfully predict extreme deviant behavior than any ‘‘access to a gun’’ variable could ever do. Rather, the contention is that if one could hold constant the characteristics of a population and vary only the accessibility of firearms, one should expect to see higher rates of murder and suicide among the better-armed, and lower rates among the less well armed populations.

More Guns, More Crime

The most important and influential evidence for the claim that guns are a vector of violent crime is found in the work of Zimring and Hawkins, whose comparison of the crime, violence, and lethal outcomes rates of various countries leads them to the conclusion that forms the title of their study: Crime Is Not the Problem . What is the problem, then? Guns—at least as a first approximation. For example, if one compares the rates of assault or robbery in the United States with other Anglophone countries (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, and Wales), America’s statistics appear normal; most of those countries’ rates of crime are quite similar to that of the United States. Similarly, if one compares burglary rates in London and New York City, one finds rather similar numbers. But in terms of lethal outcomes of crimes—crimes that end with somebody getting killed—the U.S. experience is far more deadly than that of other English-speaking countries. Polsby and Kates (1998) argue that differences in the populations and cultures of these countries offer an explanation for this phenomenon.

Prohibition

For purposes of the present discussion prohibition means either legally forbidding civilian ownership of weapons of a certain class or heavily burdening ownership with the practical effect of prohibition. In the second sense, machine guns and artillery pieces have been prohibited by federal law even though a few civilians—collectors and hobbyists—comply with the onerous legal requirements that are imposed on the possession of such weapons. In the first sense, sawed-off shotguns are prohibited by federal law; handguns by the laws of a number of cities such as Washington, D.C., or Chicago and a few of its northern suburbs (Morton Grove, Winnetka, Evanston, Highland Park); Saturday night specials (cheap, easily concealed handguns), variously defined, by the laws of a few jurisdictions; and socalled assault weapons, variously defined, by federal law and the laws of a number of states.

The two principal questions posed by any prohibition law is whether it will have its intended effect and, if so, whether it will have unintended effects. Both these questions have theoretical and empirical aspects.

Intended Effect

It is reasonable to ask why one should, a priori, expect weapons prohibitions to work at all. Prohibitions are enforced by means of criminal penalties, but the penalty assessed for violating a weapon law as such will always be minor in comparison to the penalty that is specified for using a weapon to commit a murder or armed robbery. Persons who are not deterred by the greater penalty are not likely, as a rule, to be deterred by the lesser. The entire freight of behavior modification that such laws can be expected to effect should be on people who are highly unlikely to utilize weapons in crime. Supposing that prohibitory laws have any effect at all, one should expect them first of all and most significantly to affect the behavior of persons who are disposed voluntarily to obey the law—who obey as a habit of social life and not as a calculation about the probability of being apprehended and punished in any given instance. Equally, one should expect to see the tardiest and most trivial obedience to such laws among persons who are not disposed to obedience to law. Accordingly, in the real world of weapons prohibition one should expect to see, if any effect at all, a perverse change in the distribution of weapons in society, with those least disposed to crime disarming themselves and those most disposed to crime disarming themselves, if at all, at a slower rate. Moreover, if it is true that weapons, as a tool of criminals, become more valuable as they can be introduced into transactions where defenders (shopkeepers, homeowners, and so on) are increasingly less likely themselves to be armed, one should actually expect prohibitory laws to ‘‘cause’’ a certain amount of crime. A more circumspect conclusion is reached by Kleck and Patterson (1993), whose study of the effect of nineteen different gun control laws on gun ownership levels and rates of violent crimes, controlling for numerous potential confounding factors, found no consistent evidence for the effectiveness of these laws.

Unintended Consequences

The most ambitious econometric study ever attempted of the effects of gun control on crime reached the conclusion that liberalizing the terms on which civilians might carry concealed weapons had a significant and constructive effect on the rate of murders, robberies, burglaries, and rapes (Lott and Mustard). The explanation for this effect seems, in fact, to be the oldest theory of modern criminology, namely that of general deterrence (Beccaria). As predatory behavior becomes more expensive, there will be, other things equal, less predatory behavior. The implication is that restricting civilian access to firearms can reasonably be called a ‘‘cause’’ of crime, at least certain kinds of crime—the kinds that involve interpersonal confrontations in which direct intimidation is a factor.

Suicide differs from other homicide in that perpetrators more seldom have a background of deviant behavior. Suicide is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the old and the sick; in fact, suicide rates are the highest in segments of the population in which homicide rates are the lowest—and vice versa. National rates of suicide are among the most stable of public health statistics. The suicide rate in the United States is approximately 11 or 12 in 100,000 of population, and handguns have been rapidly increasing as the method of choice for suicide. A number of studies have attempted to relate an individual’s access to handguns to his probability of committing suicide (see Kleck). The methodological problem for such studies is that of causation: does possession of a gun increase a person’s likelihood of suicide, or do people who mean to commit suicide go out and get guns? It may be the case that access to a firearm modestly increases the risk of suicide. Other means of selfdestruction, though numerous, are imperfect substitutes for firearms, which are cheap, effective, and easy to use. This fact might also serve to explain why handguns are increasingly becoming the instrument of choice for suicides. There appears to be negligible evidence, however, that gun control laws can realistically be used to keep weapons out of the hands of those contemplating suicide.

Waiting Periods

Laws that require purchasers of firearms to wait for one or more days between purchasing weapons and taking possession of them are based on the idea that a certain number of homicidal attacks are impulsive, rage-driven affairs, and that a cooling-off period might lower the danger of this sort of homicide. Lott found no evidence that waiting periods did in fact affect rates of homicide or other crimes, nor did Kopel in an earlier study. If there is any evidence in favor of this form of gun control, it is anecdotal in nature.

Gun Buy-Back Programs

The premise of programs in which people turn in unwanted weapons to authorities, with no questions asked—sometimes in exchange for cash or something of value—is that firearms are, in effect, mischief waiting to happen, and that the fewer firearms in civilian hands, the better. Buyback programs have been favorites of newspaper editorialists and anti-gun advocates (e.g., Editorial, Chicago Tribune ; Seibel), but even some scholars generally friendly to gun control (e.g., Callahan, Rivara, and Koepsal; Romero, Wintemute, and Vernick), have found no credible evidence that such programs affect rates of crime or have a favorable impact on public safety.

Background Checks

The federal Brady law requires purchasers of handguns to submit to background checks prior to taking delivery of a handgun, and the laws of some states, like Illinois, make background checks mandatory for all firearms purchases. The purpose of these laws is to establish that the purchaser is not a criminal, fugitive, known substance abuser, or in other ways legally disqualified from possessing a firearm. So long as the background check is carried out within a few minutes, such laws impose little burden on gun buyers. For this reason, they have not been especially controversial. There appears, however, to be no persuasive evidence that such laws affect crime or indeed that they have any impact on criminals’ acquisition of weapons. As a leading researcher on the subject has said, there are apparently ‘‘serious limits on the results one can reasonably expect from controls applied only to voluntary (nontheft) transfers such as gun sales. One cannot substantially reduce the flow of water through a sieve by blocking just a few of the holes, especially if one cannot block the largest ones’’ (Kleck, p. 93).

Gun control laws invite two questions. First, how do firearms laws affect the distribution of guns in a given population; second, how does the pattern of firearms dispersion in that population affect its likelihood of engaging in crime. It must be said that there is relatively little evidence in the United States for the proposition that laws can effectively get people to give up guns they already own or to refrain from acquiring new weapons. The relationship between firearms dispersion, crime, and violence is difficult to sort out. While criminals often use guns to commit crimes, seek firearms for this purpose, and probably commit a different number and kind of crime when they have guns than when they do not, it is undeniably also true that guns are effective in the same applications for which police officers use them—deterring aggression. One should expect to see guns where one sees criminals, but also where honest people are fearful of criminals. There is little persuasive evidence in favor of gun control as a crime reduction technique and some probability that, in some circumstances, additional regulation might have a perverse effect.

Bibliography:

  • BECCARIA, CESARE. An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764). Boston: International Pocket Library, 1983.
  • CALLAHAN, CHARLES; RIVARA, FREDERICK P.; and KOEPSAL, THOMAS D. ‘‘Money for Guns: Evaluation of the Seattle Gun Buy-Back Program.’’ Public Health Reports ( July 1994): 472.
  • COOK, PHILIP ‘‘The Technology of Personal Violence.’’ Crime and Justice, Annual Review of Research. Edited by Michael Tonry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
  • DUGGAN, MARK. More Crime, More Guns (National Bureau of Economic Research working paper no. W7967, October, 2000).
  • ‘‘317 Down, Millions More to Go.’’ Chicago Tribune , 29 December 1993, sec. 1, p. 14.
  • KELLERMANN, ARTHUR, and REAY, DONALD T. ‘‘Protection or Peril? An Analysis of FirearmsRelated Deaths in the Home.’’ New England Journal of Medicine 314 (1986): 1557–1560.
  • KLECK, GARY. Targeting Guns. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997.
  • KOPEL, DAVID Why Gun Waiting Periods Threaten Public Safety. Golden, Colo: Independence Institute, 1993.
  • LOTT, JOHN, JR. More Guns, Less Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  • LOTT, JOHN, JR., and MUSTARD, DAVID. ‘‘Crime, Deterrence and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns.’’ Journal of Legal Studies 26 (1997): 1–68.
  • LUDWIG, JENS. ‘‘Gun Self-Defense and Deterrence.’’ Journal of Crime and Justice 27 (2000): 363–417.
  • POLSBY, DANIEL. ‘‘The False Promise of Gun Control.’’ Atlantic Monthly (March, 1994), pp. 57–70.
  • POLSBY, DANIEL, and KATES, DON. B., JR. ‘‘American Homicide Exceptionalism.’’ University of Colorado Law Review 69 (1998): 969–1007.
  • ROMERO, MICHAEL; WINTEMUTE, GAREN J.; and VERNICK, JON S. ‘‘Characteristics of a Gun Exchange Program, and an Assessment of Potential Benefits.’’ Injury Prevention 4 (1998): 206– 210.
  • SEIBEL, TOM. ‘‘Rodriguez Touts Gun Turn-In.’’ Chicago Sun-Times, 25 January 1994, p. 6.
  • ZIMRING, FRANKLIN. ‘‘Is Gun Control Likely to Control Violent Killings?’’ University of Chicago Law Review 35 (1968): 721–737.
  • ZIMRING, FRANKLIN, and HAWKINS, GORDON. Crime is Not the Problem. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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gun control research paper example

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Gun Control Essay: Important Topics, Examples, and More

gun control research paper example

Gun Control Definition

Gun control refers to the regulation of firearms to reduce the risk of harm caused by their misuse. It is an important issue that has garnered much attention in recent years due to the increasing number of gun-related incidents, including mass shootings and homicides. Writing an essay about gun control is important because it allows one to explore the various aspects of this complex and controversial topic, including the impact of gun laws on public safety, the constitutional implications of gun control, and the social and cultural factors that contribute to gun violence.

In writing an essay on gun control, conducting thorough research, considering multiple perspectives, and developing a well-informed argument is important. This may involve analyzing existing gun control policies and their effectiveness, exploring the attitudes and beliefs of different groups towards firearms, and examining the historical and cultural context of gun ownership and use. Through this process, one can develop a nuanced understanding of the issue and propose effective solutions to address the problem of gun violence.

Further information on writing essays on gun control can be found in various sources, including academic journals, policy reports, and news articles. In the following paragraphs, our nursing essay writing services will provide tips and resources to help you write an effective and informative guns essay. Contact our custom writer and get your writing request satisfied in a short term.

Gun Control Essay Types

There are various types of essays about gun control, each with its own unique focus and approach. From analyzing the effectiveness of existing gun laws to exploring the cultural and historical context of firearms in society, the possibilities for exploring this topic are virtually endless.

Gun Control Essay Types

Let's look at the following types and examples from our essay writing service USA :

  • Argumentative Essay : This essay clearly argues for or against gun control laws. The writer must use evidence to support their position and refute opposing arguments.
  • Descriptive Essay: A descriptive essay on gun control aims to provide a detailed topic analysis. The writer must describe the history and evolution of gun laws, the different types of firearms, and their impact on society.
  • Cause and Effect Essay: This type of essay focuses on why gun control laws are necessary, the impact of gun violence on society, and the consequences of not having strict gun control laws.
  • Compare and Contrast Essay: In this type of essay, the writer compares and contrasts different countries' gun laws and their effectiveness. They can also compare and contrast different types of guns and their impact on society.
  • Expository Essay: This type of essay focuses on presenting facts and data on the topic of gun control. The writer must explain the different types of gun laws, their implementation, and their impact on society.
  • Persuasive Essay: The writer of a persuasive essay aims to persuade the reader to support their position on gun control. They use a combination of facts, opinions, and emotional appeals to convince the reader.
  • Narrative Essay: A narrative essay on gun control tells a story about an individual's experience with gun violence. It can be a personal story or a fictional one, but it should provide insight into the human impact of gun violence.

In the following paragraphs, we will provide an overview of the most common types of gun control essays and some tips and resources to help you write them effectively. Whether you are a student, a researcher, or simply someone interested in learning more about this important issue, these essays can provide valuable insight and perspective on the complex and often controversial topic of gun control.

Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

A persuasive essay on gun control is designed to convince the reader to support a specific stance on gun control policies. To write an effective persuasive essay, the writer must use a combination of facts, statistics, and emotional appeals to sway the reader's opinion. Here are some tips from our expert custom writer to help you write a persuasive essay on gun control:

How to Choose a Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

  • Research : Conduct thorough research on gun control policies, including their history, effectiveness, and societal impact. Use credible sources to back up your argument.
  • Develop a thesis statement: In your gun control essay introduction, the thesis statement should clearly state your position on gun control and provide a roadmap for your paper.
  • Use emotional appeals: Use emotional appeals to connect with your reader. For example, you could describe the impact of gun violence on families and communities.
  • Address opposing viewpoints: Address opposing viewpoints and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
  • Use statistics: Use statistics to back up your argument. For example, you could use statistics to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
  • Use rhetorical devices: Use rhetorical devices, such as metaphors and analogies, to help the reader understand complex concepts.

Persuasive gun control essay examples include:

  • The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to own any firearm.
  • Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in the United States.
  • The proliferation of guns in society leads to more violence and higher crime rates.
  • Gun control laws should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.

Argumentative Essay on Gun Control

A gun control argumentative essay is designed to present a clear argument for or against gun control policies. To write an effective argumentative essay, the writer must present a well-supported argument and refute opposing arguments. Here are some tips to help you write an argumentative essay on gun control:

an Argumentative Essay on Gun Control

  • Choose a clear stance: Choose a clear stance on gun control policies and develop a thesis statement that reflects your position.
  • Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and use credible sources to back up your argument.
  • Refute opposing arguments: Anticipate opposing arguments and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
  • Use evidence: Use evidence to back up your argument. For example, you could use data to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
  • Use logical reasoning: Use logical reasoning to explain why your argument is valid.

Examples of argumentative essay topics on gun control include:

  • Gun control laws infringe upon individuals' right to bear arms and protect themselves.
  • Gun control laws are ineffective and do not prevent gun violence.

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How to Choose a Good Gun Control Topic: Tips and Examples

Choosing a good gun control topic can be challenging, but with some careful consideration, you can select an interesting and relevant topic. Here are seven tips for choosing a good gun control topic with examples:

  • Consider current events: Choose a topic that is current and relevant. For example, the impact of the pandemic on gun control policies.
  • Narrow your focus: Choose a specific aspect of gun control to focus on, such as the impact of gun control laws on crime rates.
  • Consider your audience: Consider who your audience is and what they are interested in. For example, a topic that appeals to gun enthusiasts might be the ethics of owning firearms.
  • Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and current events. For example, the impact of the Second Amendment on gun control laws.
  • Choose a controversial topic: Choose a controversial topic that will generate discussion. For example, the impact of the NRA on gun control policies.
  • Choose a topic that interests you: You can choose an opinion article on gun control that you are passionate about and interested in. For example, the impact of mass shootings on public opinion of gun control.
  • Consider different perspectives: Consider different perspectives on gun control and choose a topic that allows you to explore multiple viewpoints. For example, the effectiveness of background checks in preventing gun violence.

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Pro-Gun Control Essay Topics

Here are pro-gun control essay topics that can serve as a starting point for your research and writing, helping you to craft a strong and persuasive argument.

  • Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in America.
  • The Second Amendment was written for a different time and should be updated to reflect modern society.
  • Gun control and gun safety laws can prevent mass shootings and other forms of gun violence.
  • Owning a gun should be a privilege, not a right.
  • Universal background checks should be mandatory for all gun purchases.
  • The availability of assault weapons should be severely restricted.
  • Concealed carry permits should be harder to obtain and require more rigorous training.
  • The gun lobby has too much influence on government policy.
  • The mental health of gun owners should be considered when purchasing firearms.
  • Gun violence has a significant economic impact on communities and the nation as a whole.
  • There is a strong correlation between high gun ownership rates and higher gun violence rates.
  • Gun control policies can help prevent suicides and accidental shootings.
  • Gun control policies should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.
  • More research is needed on the impact of gun control policies on gun violence.
  • The impact of gun violence on children and young people is a significant public health issue.
  • Gun control policies should be designed to reduce the illegal gun trade and access to firearms by criminals.
  • The right to own firearms should not override the right to public safety.
  • The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from gun violence.
  • Gun control policies are compatible with the Second Amendment.
  • International examples of successful gun control policies can be applied in America.

Anti-Gun Control Essay Topics

These topics against gun control essay can help you develop strong and persuasive arguments based on individual rights and the importance of personal freedom.

  • Gun control laws infringe on the Second Amendment and individual rights.
  • Stricter gun laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.
  • Gun control laws are unnecessary and will only burden law-abiding citizens.
  • Owning a gun is a fundamental right and essential for self-defense.
  • Gun-free zones create a false sense of security and leave people vulnerable.
  • A Gun control law will not stop mass school shootings, as these are often premeditated and planned.
  • The government cannot be trusted to enforce gun control laws fairly and justly.
  • Gun control laws unfairly target law-abiding gun owners and punish them for the actions of a few.
  • Gun ownership is a part of American culture and heritage and should not be restricted.
  • Gun control laws will not stop criminals from using firearms to commit crimes.
  • Gun control laws often ignore the root causes of gun violence, such as mental illness and poverty.
  • Gun control laws will not stop terrorists from using firearms to carry out attacks.
  • Gun control laws will only create a black market for firearms, making it easier for criminals to obtain them.
  • Gun control laws will not stop domestic violence, as abusers will find other ways to harm their victims.
  • Gun control laws will not stop drug cartels and organized crime from trafficking firearms.
  • Gun control laws will not stop gang violence and turf wars.
  • Gun control laws are an infringement on personal freedom and individual responsibility.
  • Gun control laws are often rooted in emotion rather than reason and evidence.
  • Gun control laws ignore the important role that firearms play in hunting and sport shooting.
  • More gun control laws will only give the government more power and control over its citizens.

Example Essays

Whether you have been assigned to write a gun control research paper or essay, the tips provided above should help you grasp the general idea of how to cope with this task. Now, to give you an even better understanding of the task and set you on the right track, here are a few excellent examples of well-written papers on this topic:

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Final Words

In conclusion, writing a sample rhetorical analysis essay requires careful analysis and effective use of persuasive techniques. Whether you are a high school student or a college student, mastering the art of rhetorical analysis can help you become a more effective communicator and critical thinker. With practice and perseverance, anyone can become a skilled writer and excel in their academic pursuits.

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Is gun control really about people control?

James i. ausman.

1 Department of Neurosurgery, University of California, Los Angeles,

2 Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda, CA,

Miguel A. Faria

3 Departments of Surgery (Neurosurgery) and Medical History, Mercer University School of Medicine (ret.), Macon, GA, USA.

The Second Amendment of the USA Constitution states: “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.” Today around the USA and the world some people are advocating the removal of guns from the citizens, called “Gun Control,” as the solution to violent crime that they associate with guns in the hands of the public, contrary to what the Second Amendment states.

This review provides a factual background to the debate about the issues surrounding the arguments for and against “Gun Control.” The paper documents many factors that lead to violent crimes committed by people. The means used to cause violent crimes cover the history of human civilization. They include weapons of all types, bombs, toxic substances, vehicles of many kinds, and planes, all to cause the death of others. Some who commit or threaten violent crime against others are emotionally disturbed and in many cases are known to the police through screening systems. Family dysfunction, alcohol and drug abuse, an incessant stream of media and entertainment featuring gun violence, and an educational system that does not equip the young with the proper civic and ethical principles to deal with life’s challenges all contribute to violent behavior using guns and other lethal means. With this background of multiple factors leading to the commission of violent crimes against others, the focus has been concentrated on banning firearms from public ownership rather than understanding the reasons for this criminal behavior. Why? There is the overwhelming evidence that disarming the public from using firearms will not reduce violent crimes and will render people defenseless. Other facts indicate that allowing citizens to carry arms will prevent or reduce violent crimes. The debate over Gun Control has become politicized and emotionally based, because the real goal is not stated. In respected scientific journals and in the Media, factual information about the causes and prevention of violent deaths has been misrepresented or is blatantly false. Using censorship, the medical press and the mass media have refused to publish articles or print opposing opinions such as those supporting the rights of citizens to bear arms. There is evidence that tax-exempt foundations and wealthy individuals are financially supporting Gun Control efforts with the goal of disarming the public to establish a centrally controlled government and to eliminate the US Constitution. It is obvious that in the rapidly changing world we need to find answers to the many factors behind Violent Crime in which guns are used. That will take time and patience. In the meantime, is there a gray area for compromise in the Guns and Violence issue? Yes, logically, from all the evidence presented in this review, citizens should be encouraged to carry arms for self, family, and fellow citizen protection, and as a check on government, a right guaranteed by the constitution and endowed by our God-given natural right. The challenges facing us are multifaceted. Is Gun Control really about People Control?

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INTRODUCTION — MASS MURDER, CASE EXAMPLES — USA — WHAT ARE THE FACTS?

Parkland, florida: (february 14, 2018).

Wikipedia reported that at least for a 2-year period before the shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the local sheriff’s office had information that the shooter wanted to commit a school shooting. Nothing was done. Furthermore, at the time of the shooting, several police officers remained outside the school and did not confront the murderer. Subsequently, the state legislature raised the minimum age for buying guns from 18 to 21. It banned certain kinds of firearms, established background checks, and waiting periods for gun buyers. It also allowed teachers to be trained and armed and prohibited mentally unstable people from possessing guns.[ 23 ]

  • Most of these new regulations have been found not to reduce gun violence.
  • “ In fact, America is not the worst country for mass shootings and does not even make it to the top ten, despite the record number of guns in the hands of Americans. For example France, Norway, Belgium, Finland, and the Czech Republic, all have more deaths from mass shootings than the U.S., and in fact, from 2009 to 2015, the European Union had 27 percent more casualties per mass shooting incidents than the U.S .”[ 10 ]
  • All of the talks about establishing safeguards are meaningless for the following common-sense reasons. If you have a child in school, would you want teachers and others to be armed to prevent or stop such an attack on your child and others? Or would you want your child to be defenseless? What will happen if the police do not act on information they are given about a threatened attack, or if the police even responded but did not confront the killer? What good do the laws do if no one follows them or if they are not enforced? Only armed citizens or armed school sentinels on the spot can stop these murders.

San Bernardino: (December 2, 2015)

  • “ The San Bernardino terrorist attack took place on December 2, 2015, when 14 people were massacred and 22 others were injured in the mass shooting and attempted bombing of the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators were a married couple, both of Pakistani descent, who had been radicalized by Islamic fundamentalism in the United States. Their target was a Department of Public Health Christmas party at a rented banquet room with about 80 employees in attendance, including the husband who was a public health inspector. After the shooting, the couple escaped but were pursued and later killed in a shootout with police. The motives were Islamic terrorism, incited by jihad and, apparently, seeking martyrdom. Several friends and family members were subsequently arrested under a variety of charges, ranging from conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, perjury, sham marriages, and immigration fraud. An armed citizen could have stopped the shooting rampage, but in a restricted public health setting, we must admit that armed self-defense would have been highly unlikely. Besides the fact that a group of public health workers is unlikely to have among them Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) holders, the Inland Regional Center is also most likely designated a gun-free zone (GFZ) that consigns those present to be helpless and defenseless victims in a mass shooting incident .”[ 10 ]
  • “ Since 1950, 97.8 Percent of Mass Shootings have occurred in “Gun-Free Zones” “[Jerome Hudson. 50 things they don’t want you to know. Broadside Books; 2019; Chapter 6; available at amazon.com] .

Santa Fe, Texas High School Shooting: (May 18, 2018)

  • “ Ten people – eight students and two teachers – were fatally shot and thirteen others were wounded. The suspected shooter was taken into custody and later identified by police as a 17-year-old student at the school .”[ 26 ] Could these murders have been prevented by an armed citizen?

First Baptist Church, Southerland Springs, Texas: (November 5, 2017)

  • “ We suffered another tragic mass killing when a young man dressed in black and armed with a Ruger AR-556 rifle entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5 and opened fire killing 26 people and wounding 20 other parishioners. No one, who was at the church, was untouched by death and destruction. The gunman fled the church but was pursued by two armed citizens. Thankfully, those two Texas heroes ended what could have been a series of massacres by another deranged malcontent .”[ 10 ]

Assault Rifles: The other side of the story

  • In November 1990, Brian Rigsby and his friend Tom Styer left their home in Atlanta, Georgia, and went camping near Oconee National Forest, not too far from where I [Miguel A. Faria] live in rural Georgia. Suddenly, they were assaulted by two madmen, who had been taking cocaine and who fired at them using shotguns killing Styer. Rigsby returned fire with a Ruger Mini-14, a semiautomatic weapon frequently characterized as an assault weapon. It saved his life .[ 6 ]
  • In January 1994, Travis Dean Neel was cited as citizen of the year in Houston, Texas. He had saved a police officer and helped the police arrest three dangerous criminals in a gunfight, street shooting incident. Neel had helped stop the potential mass shooters using once again a semiautomatic, so-called assault weapon with a high capacity magazine. He provided cover for the police who otherwise were outgunned and would have been killed .[ 6 ]
  • What would have happened if these citizens did not have the “assault weapons” to save their lives and others from these mentally unstable assailants or outright criminals?

Banning of kitchen knives in England

“ The United Kingdom has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world, so the increased murder rate in the British capital is largely a result of a sharp rise in knife- related crime. The surge in violence prompted London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to announce a massive ‘Knife Control’ campaign reminiscent of those sometimes suggested in the United States in response to firearms-related violence…The U.K. already criminalizes the purchase or possession of various types of knives, and the carrying of any knife with a blade longer than 3 inches in public is illegal unless it is carried “with good reason.” Self-defense is not considered a good reason .”

“ This crackdown on knives, and the surrounding rhetoric demonizing those who would carry them in public, should serve as a warning to Americans disconcerted by the vocal anti-Second Amendment activists in our own country. They will not be satisfied by merely taking away your scary “assault weapons.” In theory, the 1689 English Bill of Rights protects the right of individual British subjects to possess arms for purposes of self-defense. In reality, modern Britons have had this right completely stripped from them [by over more than 300 years of restrictive legislation in violation of the subjects’ rights-Ed], to the point where they may be reprimanded for using kitchen knives against home intruders…Disarming law-abiding citizens is dangerous because it does not stop criminals, who will never voluntarily discard their weapons, from engaging in violent activity. It is dangerous because it leaves law-abiding citizens defenseless against both crime and tyranny .”[ 20 ]

  • This article describes the relentless progression of legislation restricting the right of citizens to be armed and explains why US citizens are so adamant in their defense of the Second Amendment rights, and to be against even minor compromises in that Right.

NYC truck terror attack (October 31, 2017)

  • Dr. Faria states, “Before closing on the issue of Islamic terrorism, a word should be said about the most recent incident in New York City, which underscores not only the increasing new terroristic threat to American cities but also the use of cars and trucks to plow into unsuspecting crowds with mass casualties of innocent civilians. A vehicle driven into a crowd is becoming the terrorists’ weapon of choice in Europe, and the sanguinary practice seems to be taking hold in the U.S. as well.
  • “ The Halloween truck attack on October 31, 2017, in Manhattan, a few blocks from the site of the Twin Towers [where the largest terrorist attack in the US history occurred on September 11, 2001], is the most recent egregious example. The atrocity also emphasizes the switch from mass shootings caused by deranged citizens to deliberate jihad by foreign and domestic Islamic terrorists. The courts’ disapproval of President Trump’s ban on immigration from seven countries with strong ties to terrorism has permitted dangerous individuals to continue to enter the country. Our faulty immigration laws and virtually open borders facilitate Islamic terrorism in this country, whether by mass shootings or by the use of vehicles to plow into crowds .”[ 10 ]
  • Will banning guns stop these mass murders?

Bombs in Boston Marathon by terrorists (April 15, 2013)

  • “ During the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, two homemade pressure cooker bombs detonated 12 s and 210 yards (190 m) apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the race, killing three people and injuring several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs… Three days later, the FBI released images of two suspects who were later identified as Chechen Kyrgyzstani-American brothers… They killed an MIT policeman, kidnapped a man in his car, and had a shootout with the police in nearby Watertown, during which two officers were severely injured, one of whom died a year later. One brother terrorist died. The other brother stated that they were motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs… and learned to build explosive devices from an online magazine of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He also said they had intended to travel to New York City to bomb Times Square. The remaining brother was sentenced to death .”[ 22 ]
  • Will banning guns stop these crimes?

THE PRESS: INACCURATE REPORTING AND CENSORSHIP

Editorial in the lancet: “gun deaths and the gun control debate in the usa”.

In the October 22, 2017 issue of The Lancet, an Editorial was published entitled, “Gun Deaths and the gun control debate in the USA.” There was no author listed. The editorial begins, “The numbing parade of mass shootings in the USA — like the one in Las Vegas that left at least 59 people dead — has often obscured the gun debate’s open secret: horrific, attention- grabbing, and mass shootings represent only a small minority of gun deaths each year. Two-thirds of all gun deaths in the USA are attributable to suicide…” The editorial continues, “…Rural counties have a higher prevalence of suicide than do small and medium metropolitan, or urban counties…” The author cites the passage of “the Dickey Amendment, [a] federal law that bans funding for most gun violence research, effectively stopping the CDC (since 1996) and National Institutes of Health (NIH; since 2012) from examining gun violence and ways to prevent it… .”

JAMA editorial on “Death by Gun Violence — A Public Health Crisis”

The JAMA Editorial by Bauchner et al. was entitled “Death by Gun Violence – A Public Health Crisis,” JAMA: 318:1763, 2017. Dr. Bauchner and colleagues start by repeating the details of the Las Vegas mass shooting in which 59 people died and over 500 were injured. They continue by saying that almost 100 people die each day in the USA from gun violence. They state that there were 36,252 deaths from firearms in the USA in 2015, which exceeded the number who died in motor vehicle accidents. They agree that 60% of gun deaths were from suicides. Their conclusion was, “the key to reducing firearm deaths in the United States is to understand and reduce exposure to the cause, just like in any epidemic, and in this case that is guns.”

Dr. Faria’s response

[Miguel Faria, MD, Associate Editor in Chief SNI Publications submitted editorials to each journal in response to their editorials. Both of Faria’s responses were similar. The following is Dr. Faria’s letter to the JAMA about its Editorial on gun violence. Neither of Faria’s Letters to the Editor were published. He was given no reason for their inaction.]

“Your editorial on gun violence has a number of glaring errors and distortions. For example, the statement that guns in the home are more likely to result “in the death of the loved ones rather than the intruder” has been thoroughly disproved directly in the criminology and sociologic literature by a number of investigators, including Dr. Edgar Suter, Prof. Gary Kleck, Prof. John R. Lott, as well substantiated by the seminal work of Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi .[ 15 - 17 , 19 , 28 ] You also disingenuously implied that the U.S. has a high suicide rate because of easy gun availability. Well, it is true that a gun is a very effective method of suicide. People in other countries kill themselves very effectively and at higher rates than the US by other methods. For example, recent figures (2016) show that Japan ranks 26 th in International Suicide Rates; the Japanese commit suicide via hanging, suffocation, jumping in front of trains, and Hara-kiri at a rate of 19.7/100,000, much higher than the United States. Americans rank 48 th and the rate is 14.3/100,000. Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary, and many other European countries have higher rates of suicide than the U.S., and again all of them have stricter gun laws. As long as there are ropes, knives, pesticides, and trains, there will be suicides. Will we have to return to the Stone Age to stop suicides? Like it or not, possessing firearms is a constitutional right of Americans, supported by two Supreme Court decisions.” [ 5 , 27 ]

“ As to most of the investigations linking gun availability to violence, they have been …shown to be biased and politicized studies, conducted with predetermined conclusions — which is the case with most of the public health studies on gun violence. As to the rural suicide studies, Dr. Thomas Gift, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical School, has recently debunked the Maryland study on gun violence as faulty and poorly designed. Dr. Gift complained, “While the authors claim to be comparing rural and urban data, the counties in Maryland they label as “rural” seem to be largely suburban. They conducted numerous statistical tests without any attempt to control for the associations they call “significant” but which arise solely by chance in the course of doing so many numerical manipulations.” [ 11 ] In short, the CDC was restricted from conducting such gun studies because the studies were politicized, flawed, and conducted with preordained results so that they could only be characterized as junk science. I was one of the four experts, who testified to the Congressional Committee that led to the ban in 1996. It was and remains the correct step that public policy should be based on sound scholarship with consideration of constitutional issues, not emotionalism, and pseudoscience .”[ 2 , 14 , 19 , 29 ]

According to the writing of Dr. T. Wheeler, Director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership,[ 21 ] the readers should know that the American Medical Association has taken a position against gun ownership by the public since the AMA’s President Richard Corlin’s inaugural address in 1991. He spoke against guns, public gun ownership, and gun manufacturers for catering to the criminal market. The AMA has been joined by the Joyce Foundation and its anti-gun advocacy research money although denying this position vigorously. The AMA’s House of Delegates has not subsequently fully supported Gorlin’s position. The Editorial attests to the AMA’s continued biased stance agaist gun ownership by the public. The AMA’s membership has declined from 70% of the practicing physicians in the 1950s to 15% by 2011, indicating a lack of support by US physicians for its policies.[ 21 ] This is another example of bias behind some medical reporting that is assumed to represent most physicians thinking.

In his paper on “America, guns, and freedom. Part I: a recapitulation of liberty”[ 4 ] Faria states, “As neurosurgeons, we can be compassionate and still be honest and have the moral courage to pursue the truth and viable solutions through the use of sound, scholarly research in the area of guns and violence. We have an obligation to reach our conclusions based on objective data and scientific information rather than on ideology, emotionalism, or partisan politics.”

ADDITIONAL FACTUAL INFOMATION ON GUNS AND VIOLENCE

More gun possession in the united states has not resulted in increased crime.

In his paper, “America, guns, and freedom. Part I: a recapitulation of liberty,”[ 4 ] Dr. Faria states, “The role of gun violence and street crime in the United States and the world is currently a subject of great debate among national and international organizations, including the United Nations. Because the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual right of American citizens to own private firearms, availability of firearms is greater in the U.S. than the rest of the world except, perhaps, in Israel and Switzerland.”[ 4 ]

“ Indeed, although the American people continue to purchase and possess more firearms, homicides, and violent crimes have continued to diminish for several decades because guns in the hands of the law-abiding citizens do not translate into more crime .”[ 4 ]

Evidence guns prevent crime

Dr. Faria[ 3 ] cites a study by Dr. Edgar A. Suter, former Chairman of Doctors for Integrity in Research and Public Policy, and others, whose studies we have cited, which states,

“ the defensive use of firearms by citizens amounts to 2.5 million uses per year and dwarfs the offensive gun use by criminals. In the United States, between 25 and 75 lives are saved by a gun in self and family protection for every life lost to a gun in crime. The Media tend to cover the sensational side of the mass killings and not the successes of those with guns who prevent attacks or limit their severity by the armed citizens’ quick action .”

From his research, Faria states,

“ Australians learned the lessons of indiscriminate, draconian gun control laws the hard way. In 1996, a criminally insane man shot to death 35 people at a Tasmanian resort. The government immediately responded by passing stringent gun control laws, banning most firearms, and ordering their confiscation. More than 640,000 guns were seized from ordinary Australian citizens .”[ 3 ]

“ As a result, there was a sharp and dramatic increase in violent crime against the disarmed law-abiding citizens, who, in small communities and particularly in rural areas, were now unable to protect themselves from brigands and robbers. That same year in the state of Victoria, for example, there was a 300% increase in homicides committed with firearms. The following year, robberies increased by almost 60% in South Australia. By 1999, assaults had increased by almost 20% in New South Wales. 2 years following the gun ban/confiscation, armed robberies had risen by 73%, unarmed robberies by 28%, kidnappings by 38%, assaults by 17%, and manslaughter by 29%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics .”[ 3 ]

He continues…

Switzerland stood… “ against the Nazi threat during World War II, because each and every male was an armed and free citizen …Nazi Germany could have overwhelmed Switzerland during World War II, but the price was too steep for the German High Command. Instead, the Nazi juggernaut trampled over Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, and other countries, and avoided the armed Swiss nation, the “porcupine,” which was prepared for war and its military was ready to die rather than surrender .”[ 3 ]

In his book on America Guns and Freedom , Faria states,

“ In Switzerland, where gun laws are liberalized, there was not a single report of armed robbery in Geneva in 1993! Except for isolated instances, Switzerland remains relatively crime free. Obviously, it is not all about guns; it is also about having a homogeneous population, and a civil and cultured society… ”[ 10 ]

Faria concludes, “ that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens deter crimes, and …nations that trust their citizens with firearms have governments that sustain liberty and affirm individual freedom. Governments that do not trust their citizens with firearms tend to be despotic and tyrannical, and are a potential danger to good citizens---and a peril to humanity.” He quotes “Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States of America, who warned us, “When the government fears the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny .”[ 3 ]

Value of concealed carry weapons to the citizens

“On the other hand,” Faria states, “Professor John R. Lott, Jr.,[ 17 ] using the standard criminological approach, reviewed the FBI’s massive yearly crime statistics for all 3054 U.S. counties over 18 years (1977–1994), the largest national survey on gun ownership and state police documentation in illegal gun use.”

“ The data show that neither states’ waiting periods nor the federal Brady Law is associated with a reduction in crime rates. But by adopting concealed carry gun laws that allowed law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons for self-defense, the death rates from public, multiple shootings (e.g., as those which took place in 1996 in Dunblane, Scotland, and Tasmania, Australia or the infamous 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado in the United States) were cut by an amazing 69%. Allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crime, without any apparent increase in accidental death .”[ 3 ]

Faria concludes from his review

…” how citizens can protect themselves from criminal assailants when the police, more often than not, are not there to protect them. the National Victims Data suggests that “while victims resisting with knives, clubs, or bare hands are about twice as likely to be injured as those who submit, victims who resist with a gun are only half as likely to be injured as those who put up no defense.”….“The gun is a great equalizer for law-abiding citizens in self and family protection, particularly women, when they are accosted in the street or when they are defending themselves and their children at home” (3, and multiple sources cited by Faria) .

The Second Amendment of the Constitution does not describe any restrictions for citizens to carry arms. However, as Faria describes in detail in his new book, America, Guns, and Freedom ,[ 10 ] legislation has been passed in some states restricting the use of guns. This legislation would appear to violate the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

Faria writes in his book on this subject,

….”.“ Shall issue” refers to a legal requirement that a jurisdiction must issue a license to carry a concealed handgun to any applicant who meets a specified set of reasonable requirements. Implicit in the “shall issue” is the understanding that the applicant need not demonstrate a specific need or a “good cause.” Thus, the jurisdiction does not have the power to exercise discretion in the awarding of licenses, but “shall issue” them because the permit owners are subject only to meeting specific criteria written in the law. Therefore, most citizens should have CCW permits issued on demand .”

Faria continues, “Before 1990 there were very few states with ‘shall issue’ concealed carry laws. Beginning with Florida in 1987 and over the next 30 years, states began to pass CCW legislation [rapidly].” Presently, most states have approved either “shall issue” CCW licensing or laws for “constitutional carry” …which means that a person can exercise their Second Amendment right openly, and does not need a permit at all to carry a concealed… handgun openly. Twenty-nine states have CCW and eight states have “constitutional carry” freedom legislation…

There are 16 million concealed carry permit holders in the US, with 8% of Americans having permits. California and New York have “may issue” licenses by which the citizens may apply for a license by expressing need, but the privilege is so stringent that, even after providing evidence of a pressing need, licenses are frequently delayed or denied, and citizens have been killed while waiting to obtain one…

Before the American Civil War most states were “constitutional carry.” After the Civil War many states began to add gun control restrictions, and strict “may issue” gun licensing became the norm… ”[ 10 ]

The central concern about gun control legislation that is proposed is that “gun registration is the gateway to civilian disarmament which often precedes [tyranny and] genocide.”[ 10 ]

Violent crimes and crimes of passion

What is the profile of the person committing violent crimes?

From his research Faria answers:

“ According to the United States Department of Justice, the typical murderer has had a prior criminal history of at least 6 years, with four felony arrests in his record, before he finally commits murder. FBI statistics reveal that 75% of all violent crimes for any locality are committed by 6% of hardened criminals and repeat offenders. Less than 2% of crimes committed with firearms are carried out by licensed law- abiding citizens (e.g., CCW permit holders) .”[ 3 ]

Interpreted differently that means over 98% of violent crimes are committed by people without permits to carry concealed weapons.

In regard to “Crimes of Passion,” supposedly a result of impulse action by the killer, Faria concludes, from the evidence,

that violent crimes are a result of “violence in highly dysfunctional families in the setting of alcohol abuse, illicit drug use, or other criminal activities. Violent crimes continue to be a problem in the inner cities of the large metropolitan areas, with gangs involved in robberies, drug trade, juvenile delinquency, and even murder. Yet crimes in rural areas, despite the preponderance of guns in this setting, remain low .”[ 3 ]

Faria states in his recent book,

“The state with the most mass shootings (e.g., California) and the cities with the highest rates of serious crimes (Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, et cetera) are those with the strictest gun control laws.” [ 10 ]

Identify and treat the mentally ill. Those deemed dangerous should be prevented from hurting themselves and others by an effective mental health system that includes institutionalization

Faria blames changes in “the mental health system for the problem with the deinstitutionalization of mental patients, which began in America in the 1960s and put thousands of mental patients including dangerous ones back on the streets, which has only worsened in recent years.”[ 6 ]

Why have these developments taken place? Faria explains,

“This change has happened not only because of the recent drive for containment of health care costs but also because of the decades-long, misguided mental health strategy of administering mental health care via community outreach and outpatient treatment. In many cases, these strategies have led to inadequate follow-up of and poor compliance by patients as well as legal restraints placed on families. Some families cannot even obtain the health records of their children who are over 21 years of age to find out about their health history.” [ 6 ]

He also states that

“deadly rampages are the result of failure of the mental health system” [to identify those deranged individuals who have the potential to harm others.] He cites numerous examples in which armed citizens stopped a rampage killing using guns they had a license to carry or had nearby for personal protection .[ 6 ]

Faria cited a New York Times study in 2000 which revealed that in 100 cases of rampage shooting incidents, 63 involved people who “made threats of violence before the event, including 54 who threatened specific violence to specific people.” Nothing had been done about the threats. Moreover, over half of the shooters had overt signs of mental illness that had gone untreated .[ 6 ]

Thus, the evidence indicates that many people with mental illness who will commit violent crimes can be identified before the crime and should be managed more carefully or institutionalized.

For example, while it is true that the number of shooting rampages has increased in recent years, the rate of violent crimes and homicides for both Blacks and Whites (including those committed with firearms) has decreased significantly over the same period, despite the tremendous increase in the number of firearms in the U.S., according to both the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (5, and other sources)

Hence, another source indicates that the increased availability of guns has been related to a decrease in the rate of violent crimes in the US.

Convicted felons and mentally unstable people should not be allowed to possess guns

Faria reviewed a series of cases of violence and shooting rampages. His conclusion is that “Convicted felons and mentally unstable people,” should “forfeit the right to possess arms by virtue of the fact they are a potential danger to their fellow citizens.”[ 6 ]

Sanctuary Place, City, and Sanctuary Country laws which allow the felons to escape punishment and exist in society should be revoked

In the Introduction in cases #1 through #4, violent crimes were committed to what are regarded as GFZ, or places where guns are usually not permitted or which do not have armed people in the vicinity. Such places are preferred sites of violent crimes for the shooters. As additional examples of the dangers of GFZ,

A deadly rampage shooting in Norway occurred in a country that is a “GFZ” (where guns are not allowed) which also exists in most of Europe. Sixty-nine teenagers were killed during this rampage. In this circumstance, the deranged killer was free to murder these 69 young people. That is the fault of the state, which has GFZ that only apply to the unarmed citizens and not to the killers .[ 6 ]

See Introduction, San Bernardino: (December 2, 2015) b. for more on GFZ.

A media that sensationalizes violence leading the perverted minds of criminal malcontents and deranged individuals to believe that committing those types of high-profile crimes, such as mass shootings, will turn them into the celebrities and achieve the macabre fame they seem to crave

Faria writes: “ There is the sinister and perhaps more insoluble contributing factor to violence — namely, the problem of how the media report and how popular culture sensationalizes violence, which in association with the fruitless pursuit of celebrity status in vogue today is all pervasive. What more evidence is needed for the “15 min worth of fame” phenomenon, than the immense popularity of vulgar “reality” television shows? It is not a big step to link extensive coverage of shooting rampages in both the press and the colorful electronic media as a major contributing factor in the pathologic and even morbid attainment of celebrity status even in death.”[ 6 ]

Where is the Responsibility of the Press? What other issues can the Press correct to reduce violent crimes?

Failure to honestly report those who prevented crimes by carrying concealed weapons

As Faria states,

…“the Media do not report these citizens with guns who protect others and stop the killers. Instead the media sensationalizes the violence, blames the use of guns for the violence, and do not praise the defenders. Thus, the public gets a biased view of the crime.”…Faria states, …“the truth is that the incidence of mass shootings is very low by any standard.” Consider the fact that mass shootings are a miniscule portion of homicides, <4%, because most shootings are committed by common criminals not mass shooters. Faria describes research that “has shown that firearms are used more frequently by law-abiding citizens to repel crime than used by criminals to perpetrate crime.” He continues, “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage.” [ 6 ] and renders the people at the school defenseless.

Thus, by a biased reporting of violent crimes particularly with the use of guns, the media fails to inform the public of the value of armed citizens in stopping crime. The purpose of this bias is to provide more propaganda to remove guns from the citizens and to support centralized control of the people.

Why is there only selective reporting of violence using guns? Are there other responsible steps the media and press can take to reduce violent crime?

A child who reaches the age of 18 has witnessed 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence on television (American Psychiatric Association, 1988). The media need to take responsibility for this example

In a paper by Muscari published in 2003, she stated,

“American children watch an average of 28 hours of television a week. By the time they reach the age of 18, they will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence (American Psychiatric Association 1998). These numbers exclude time spent watching movies, playing video/computer games or with online interactive media, and listening to music- all of which may contain violent content. Since the deregulation of broadcasting in 1980, there has been a proliferation of media content that encourages violent and other antisocial behaviors.” [ 18 ]

She continues, “Media violence can be hazardous to children’s health. Six medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, recently released a joint statement on the impact of violence on children. They stated that studies point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors in some children.” [ 18 ]

With such bombardment of violence through the mass media and the popular culture, if guns were to be successfully banned, people will resort to violence using knives and any other available means.[ 20 ]

On this subject Faria states,

“It is not a big step to link extensive coverage of shooting rampages in both the press and the colorful electronic media as a major contributing factor in the pathologic and even morbid attainment of celebrity status, even in death.” Citing the work of Dr. Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington School of Public Health, Faria adds, “The homicide rates, not only in Canada but also in the U.S. and South Africa, soared 10–15 years after the introduction of television in those countries. In the U.S., there was an actual doubling of homicide rates after the introduction of television. Moreover, it was noted that up to half of all homicides, rapes, and violent assaults in the U.S. were directly attributed to violence on television.” [ 6 ]

The Media needs to take responsibility on its own for presenting violent solutions to problems.[ 6 ] Government regulation of the Media is not the solution to this problem, no more than it should be involved in Gun Control legislation. Both issues deal with Fundamental Freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. The People need to decide these issues not the government, whose bureaucrats at the slightest chance, will limit our Freedoms and enhance their Power.

What else can be done to reduce violent crime in the US, particularly in GFZ, as schools.

Encourage teachers and those who are willing and properly educated in the use of guns to carry weapons in schools to prevent school shootings

Faria proposes that we consider allowing teachers to have special concealed- carry firearm licenses to defend students. It would be a sensible and easy strategy “to protect the children in this mad, dystopian world we are creating in which we are too permissive to criminals and too protective of the rights of deranged individuals, while we easily blame and propose more laws and controls to limit the rights of the lawful citizens in society at large.” “Guns are inanimate objects. The responsibility for crimes rests on the criminals and those who facilitate their crimes! ”[ 6 ]

Can Public Education be returned to its original principles that include compulsory studies on Social Science, History, Civics, the Constitutional Principles of Government, and factual objective data on Criminology including Violent Crimes and their causes? Will removing guns from society solve this deficiency in our education systems? Or is our only solution to disarm the people but not the criminals and to establish a nationwide GFZ that will only incentivize Violent Crime as this paper has shown?

Need for public education on the principles of liberty, democratic governments, and the need for citizens to be armed against authoritarian government control

On the subject of Failed Social Systems and Gun Violence, Faria states,

“The American media and proponents of gun control assert that the problem lies in the “easy availability of guns“ and “too many guns” in the hands of the public. Second Amendment and gun rights advocates, on the other hand, believe the problem lies elsewhere, including a permissive criminal justice system that panders to criminals; the failure of public education; the fostering of a culture of dependence, violence, and alienation engendered by the welfare state; and the increased secularization of society with children and adolescents growing up devoid of moral guidance.”[ 6 ]

Other factors influencing criminal behavior are a prevalent attitude in the past half of the 20 th century which degrades the wisdom of generations of human history and the values of religious principles for guiding life, while replacing them with beliefs that life is meaningless and that human existence has no purpose, all of which leads to alienation, despair, violence, and suicide.

By the way, these are all goals necessary to establish authoritarian rule, goals supported by those who want to eliminate our Constitutional Republic.

Faria believes there are additional, contributing, and more proximate causes for the loss of moral compasses in our youth that lead them to violence — for example, the misguided role of the media and popular culture in the sensationalization of violence.[ 6 ]

In his paper on “America, Guns, and Freedom. Part I: a Recapitulation of Liberty”[ 4 ] Faria states,

“… freedom comes with responsibilities. Children should be taught not only the basic academic subjects but also instructed in civics, constitutional principles of government, and the meaning of liberty. Simply stated, education is important, and a system of constitutional governance that guarantees individual liberties and protects citizens from disarmament (by their own governments) comes with concomitant responsibilities. The citizens’ necessary civic involvement in the society in which they live is paramount, and it requires that the empowered population remain an informed and vigilant citizenry, the ultimate guardians of their own rights and freedoms .” These fundamental educational principles are an essential part of the understanding and responsibility for the use of firearms.

In regard to the education of children in the use of firearms, Faria describes a study performed by the United States Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.[ 3 ]

“The Agency tracked 4000 juveniles aged 6–15 years, in Denver (CO), Pittsburgh (PA), and Rochester (NY) from 1993 to 1995. The investigators found that children who were taught to use firearms with parental supervision, as in hunting or target shooting, were 14% less likely to commit acts of violence and street crimes than children who had no guns in their homes (24%); whereas, children who obtained guns illegally, did so at the whopping rate of 74%. This study also provided more evidence that in close nuclear families, where children were close to their parents, youngsters could be taught to use guns responsibly. These youngsters, in fact, grew up to be more responsible in their conduct and more civil in their behavior .[ 3 ]

Constitutional protection of the rights of citizens to bear arms against the state — Second Amendment

Faria explored the genocide attacks that have occurred throughout modern time.[ 3 ]

All these genocides occurred after guns had been taken from the people by the government, so the people are helpless to protect themselves against the armed militias of the state. He states that well-recognized legal scholars have concluded, “The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms” — for the purpose of defending themselves against the state.[ 4 ]

Nevertheless, Faria writes in his paper,[ 4 ]

… “gun prohibitionists, in justifying their crusade for gun control in place of crime control, have erroneously maintained that the Second Amendment only permits the National Guard or the police to possess firearms for collective police functions… In 2008 the Supreme Court of the USA ruled that U.S. citizens have an inalienable, personal right to keep and bear arms in the federal districts of the nation, a preexisting natural right guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution…. and Under legal tradition, a constitutional right is protected and inalienable under the 14 th Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, if it is considered a fundamental right, an inherent natural right deeply rooted in American history and jurisprudence.[ 4 ]

Attempts to subvert the Second Amendment

After mass shootings, the gun control movement has immediately demanded passage of laws restricting the sale of guns before the investigations into the causes of the crime have been completed, even though these proposed regulations are ruled unconstitutional.

“To further their efforts to over-rule the US Constitution, the Gun Control supporters have appealed to the UN to adopt a worldwide sanction on the possession of guns by the public. For years the UN has been trying to formalize a global, civilian disarmament treaty with the intention of circumventing the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners … so far without success.” [ 4 ]

Faria writes that

...”the United Nations is already set to commence discussing and approving its Small Arms Treaty in March 2013, which its proponents believe would overrule the Constitution and establish gun laws in the USA, formulated by people from other countries where the problems are worse. As one can see, the fundamental goal of the gun control proponents is to find a way to prevent all citizens from possessing arms that threaten the establishment of an authoritarian government .

President Obama encouraged the Democrats in Congress to pass gun control legislation that he could sign into laws .

The American people and their conservative representatives in Congress rose to the occasion and stopped the passage of gun control laws sponsored by the Obama administration and his liberal allies in the Democratic Party. And then in 2016 a pro- Second Amendment Republican, Donald Trump, was elected President. It seemed as if the gun control activists were at least temporarily neutralized .[ 6 ]

Still, these efforts to establish laws restricting gun ownership continue to this time. It is obvious to those pursuing this gun regulation that Amending the Constitution to make such a change in gun possession would fail. It seems that calls for gun control occur immediately after a mass shooting even before any analysis of the facts in each case is made. It is reasonable for people to be upset when people are killed. Are there calls for banning automobiles which are involved in far more deaths than are killed in homicides with guns?[ 24 , 25 ] No. Are there calls for banning trucks used in the intentional killing of people? No. What is the reason behind this selective almost hysterical emotional reaction to control guns? Guns do not kill people but People using guns do. Could it be that there is an organized effort to take guns from the public?

People and Tax-Exempt foundations promoting gun control while acting as social or public health research organizations

An answer to the questions raised previously about the immediacy of the calls for gun control before the facts are known in mass shootings, the lack of a similar response to mass murders using trucks, bombs, or knives, and the hysterical emotional responses almost perfectly timed and organized at each shooting event can be found in Dr. Faria’s new book, “America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey into Politics and the Public Health and Gun Control Movements.”[ 10 ] He states,

“While the CDC has tempered its stand on guns and violence research in the last two decades following the restrictions of 1996 (events that will be described in other chapters), the rest of the PHE (Public Health Establishment) movement — supported financially by wealthy gun control proponents such as Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, as well as progressive (Leftist, Collectivist) gun prohibitionist organizations such as The Joyce Foundation — continue to promote gun control masquerading as social or public health scientific research [ 10 ] [page 18] .

“It should also be of interest that private researchers, particularly those associated or sponsored by the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, are frequently disparaged by those in the PHE as if the fiduciary association of the former immediately taints their integrity, work, and conclusions. But why is this not so the other way around, for those receiving tax money or donations from anti-gun magnates such as George Soros and Michael Bloomberg? Why is this not the case also for research funded by private tax-exempt foundations, such as the Joyce Foundation, which are known to have progressive, socioeconomic agendas to reconstruct society in their image and with ideological axes to grind? Why do those same gun researchers, decade after decade, keep telling us that more studies are needed (and additional funding necessary) — acting for their own financial self-interests as well as subsidizing their ideological agendas? These are good questions whose answers may save taxpayers bundles of money and in the long-term, perhaps, even preserve their freedom!” [ 10 ] [page 127] .

Faria ends by providing his opinion after years of study of this problem. He states, “Let’s stop demonizing guns and end the shootings by incarcerating the criminals and healing the mentally sick. Much work needs to be done in the mental health arena and in the task of de-sensationalization of violence by the media in our dumbed-down popular culture.”[ 6 ]

DISCUSSION BY THE AUTHOR

Statement by Thomas Jefferson: “When the government fears the people there is liberty. When the People fear the government, there is tyranny.” [ 3 ]

The USA is a Constitutional Republic which means the rulers are bound by the rule of laws. Thus, in a Republican form of government, the rights of the minority are protected from the tyranny of the majority. A democracy governs by majority rule and the capricious and mischievous rule of man .[ 7 ]

All of the evidence presented in this review article points to the complex issues surrounding “gun violence.” It presents a different perspective from what you read in the Mainstream Media (MSM), which focus on the elimination of guns and civilian disarmament, instead of the reasons for criminal behavior. This simplistic approach of eliminating guns is not the answer. People will find other means to express their frustrations or outright criminality. The most reasonable solutions are education about guns and gun safety; instruction in civics and ethics; learning the principles of self-government and liberty; supporting the rule of law inherent to a Constitutional Republic, which we still are; and understanding the perils of Tyranny. The facts presented here indicate that after disarming citizens, crime escalates by the use of illegal guns or by substitution methods of lethality, such as knives, bombs, and vehicles plowing into crowds. Disarming good citizens does not prevent violent behavior. It leaves them defenseless and only encourages more crime by the criminal elements and deranged people. However, a clear fact stands out from this review. Arming citizens is the most reasonable, economic, and best choice to discourage gun- based violent behavior by empowering the citizen to protect one’s self, family, fellow citizens, and ultimately be used as a check on government.[ 12 ]

Although eliminating guns is a “quick fix” in response to this complex set of issues, it should be obvious to the reader that the solution to these issues is multifaceted and will take time. It has taken time for our cultures and civilizations to disintegrate into the chaotic situation that we are experiencing today. Family dysfunction, alcohol and drug abuse, and violent behavior from repeat offenders are central to this problem. Add to that mental illness that is not properly treated and the misuse of guns becomes obvious. Filling minds with an incessant stream of Media and Entertainment featuring gun violence, over and over, conditions individuals to resort to those copycat behaviors. Having an Educational system that does not equip the young with the proper civic and ethical principles to deal with life’s challenges and to appreciate our Republican form of government only compounds this problem. Taking guns from the citizens will not solve these problems as this paper has shown. The problem goes deeper.

On top of all of these new challenges, the individual is subjected to a world that is being transformed as people, family structures, jobs, societies, industries of all types, communication technology, and legal and governmental systems are changing rapidly in the 21 st century. There are different populations all over the world in different stages of technological advances and civilizations. However, the global elites, who desire power, want to enforce a rigid same-size- fits-all type of approach, including forcing the adoption of the type of government that the elites themselves want without noting ethnological, historic, and political differences, and above all, the desires of the people.[ 1 ] The oligarchical types of social democracy, or rule by a few, are the preferred system of rule of the Western European elites.

Compounding all these issues, in this group of self- appointed leaders are a number who have their own “tax- exempt foundations,” which they use to fund support for their ideas. In general, these elites believe they are smarter than the average citizen, whom they are convinced should not be allowed to make decisions on life’s complicated issues, such as the possession of guns. Evidence shows that this type of thinking is now infiltrating the US government and private institutions.[ 1 ] Examples involve the revelation of unlawful spying on and the attempted “Coup” against the President of the US, Donald Trump, as a citizen, President-Elect, and now President, in violation of the US Constitution. It is becoming clear this “coup” was planned and executed over time by unelected people in various branches of government including the FBI, Justice Department, Intelligence agencies, and others to remove the duly elected President from office and to establish their own form of authoritarian government.[ 1 , 9 , 13 ]

We have already witnessed Anarchy in our streets as unchecked, political, mostly left-wing groups (Antifa), prevent citizens from expressing opposing viewpoints, and limit Free Speech. Violence has been used by them with little condemnation from the MSM.[ 28 ] In fact, these groups are supported by the MSM and the entertainment industry in all its forms, as outlined above in this paper, in its biased reporting, in its violent-prone entertainment, frequently paid for by certain “charitable” and “nonprofit” corporations. They are committed to limiting conservative free expression, and in particular, opposite points of view in their television programming, print media, and worldwide websites. That is why most of the public is unaware of all the facts behind these events. These actions all point to the establishment of authoritarian rule and the elimination of our Constitutional and Republican form of government.[ 1 , 9 , 13 ]

The methods being used today for gun control were described by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to establish and enforce collectivist central control and authoritarianism. These same tactics also apply to government-controlled health care. Unfortunately, a detailed discussion of all of these issues is beyond the scope of this paper but will be addressed in a separate publication in the future. For those interested in further reading, the following references should be useful.[ 1 , 7 - 9 , 12 , 13 ]

Asking the government to solve the problem of violent crime with gun control will ultimately lead down the path to authoritarian and Tyrannical government. It is like asking a dictator what he would decide about Liberty for his people. The government should have less responsibility for our lives rather than more. The problem of violent crimes and the factors behind them should be debated and solved in each community.

FINAL COMMENTS BY THE AUTHOR

From the evidence presented in this paper, Gun Control is not about guns. Guns are not responsible for killing people. Guns cannot be blamed for deaths, being inanimate objects that require a person to pull the trigger. People who use guns irresponsibly are to blame. Therefore, the real subject of the “sometimes hysterical” Gun Control movement seems to be People Control by the elimination of the individual possession and use of firearms, despite the guarantee of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Gun Control is intended to make it easier to control the people. For the same reason, Gun Control is constantly supported by the self- appointed media elites and the hypocritical entertainment industry. The progressive stripping of the citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms in the 300-year history of the U.K., which began not long after the Glorious Revolution (1688), has reached the point where people are incarcerated for using kitchen knives against home intruders. As crime increases in the U.K, it provides evidence of how futile gun control legislation is in stopping criminal behavior and reducing violence. Tyranny is progressing as violence increases. And why just gun control and not knife control, or truck, or bomb control? Why is the focus on guns? There is no other logical reason except what I have stated:

People Control is the real purpose of depriving people of the right to possess arms for self-defense. Recent increases in violence seem not to be random events, but events that are used to cascade into more laws and more government intervention. Elimination of or circumventing the Second Amendment removes the fear of the collectivist authoritarian leaders that the citizens will rise against them with their firearms. At the same time, eradication of Freedom of Speech is already muzzling certain conservative media and website outlets, a practice the Media are now strangely supporting. The eventual elimination of Freedom of Speech, which is a collectivist goal, in the end will shock all of the Media. The Media are supporting its own destruction. Is Media Control the solution or is Media Responsibility to objectively report the Truth and to protect the people and the Constitution that grants the right to Free Speech, a better answer? The real goal of the gun control movement is to establish a governmental system that is centrally controlled and to overthrow Rule by the People or their Constitutional Republic. The issue is not about Crime Control either because we are seeing that the only way to reduce rampant crime is to arm the good citizens, as there are not enough police to prevent, much less, stop all crimes.[ 1 ]

Some gun control advocates may not even realize that they are being manipulated by people who seek Power to destroy their freedoms. Evidence is suggested that there are those who are determined to undermine our Constitutional Republic, and who are financing many programs planned to replace our individual rights and personal liberty with central control and an authoritarian government.

It is obvious that in the rapidly changing world, we need to find answers to the dynamically changing challenges we face. That will take time and patience. In the meantime, is there a gray area for compromise in the Guns and Violence issue? Yes, logically, from all the evidence presented, citizens should be encouraged to carry arms for self, family, and fellow citizen protection, and as a check on government, a right guaranteed by the Constitution and endowed by our God-given natural right. The challenges facing us are multifaceted.

All of the issues discussed in this paper are a result of the disintegration of the principles of moral and ethical behavior, a failed education system, a loss of the guidance of a good family structure, and an insatiable desire for self-satisfaction above family and country.

FREEDOM WITHOUT THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT AND DEFEND THOSE FREEDOMS WILL LEAD TO A LOSS OF ALL FREEDOMS AND TO TYRANNY. DEFENSE OF THE REPUBLIC AND ITS FREEDOMS IS EVERY PERSON’S RESPONSIBILITY, NOT THAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.

As John F Kennedy stated in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961: “ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU. ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY,”

How to cite this article: Ausman JI, Faria MA. Is gun control really about people control? Surg Neurol Int 2019;10:195.

Financial support and sponsorship

James I and Carolyn R Ausman Educational Foundation.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the journal or its management.

The authors want to thank Russell Blaylock, MD for his contributions to this manuscript .

Miguel A. Faria, M.D., is the Associate Editor in Chief in socioeconomics, politics, medicine, and world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He is a Board-Certified Neurological Surgeon (American Association of Neurological Surgeons); Clinical Professor of Surgery (Neurosurgery, ret.) and Adjunct Professor of Medical History (ret.) Mercer University School of Medicine. He was appointed and served at the behest of President George W. Bush as member of the Injury Research Grant Review Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2002-2005. Dr. Faria is an escapee from Communist Cuba at age 13 to the USA. Educated in the U.S., he became a neurosurgeon, was Editor of the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, and founded the Medical Sentinel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He has authored a number of books and is an authority on Public Health and Gun Control. His latest book is America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements which is to be released October 1, 2019. Mascot Books, Herndon VA; President , https://haciendapublishing.com , USA-JIA]

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Gun Control, Explained

A quick guide to the debate over gun legislation in the United States.

gun control research paper example

By The New York Times

As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise , gun control — a term used to describe a wide range of restrictions and measures aimed at controlling the use of firearms — remains at the center of heated discussions among proponents and opponents of stricter gun laws.

To help understand the debate and its political and social implications, we addressed some key questions on the subject.

Is gun control effective?

Throughout the world, mass shootings have frequently been met with a common response: Officials impose new restrictions on gun ownership. Mass shootings become rarer. Homicides and suicides tend to decrease, too.

After a British gunman killed 16 people in 1987, the country banned semiautomatic weapons like the ones he had used. It did the same with most handguns after a school shooting in 1996. It now has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.

In Australia, a 1996 massacre prompted mandatory gun buybacks in which, by some estimates , as many as one million firearms were then melted into slag. The rate of mass shootings plummeted .

Only the United States, whose rate and severity of mass shootings is without parallel outside conflict zones, has so consistently refused to respond to those events with tightened gun laws .

Several theories to explain the number of shootings in the United States — like its unusually violent societal, class and racial divides, or its shortcomings in providing mental health care — have been debunked by research. But one variable remains: the astronomical number of guns in the country.

America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per one million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership. Americans sometimes see this as an expression of its deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley. Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed , that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process. They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns. More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries , among American states , among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries. This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence. — Max Fisher and Josh Keller, Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns.

Every mass shooting is, in some sense, a fringe event, driven by one-off factors like the ideology or personal circumstances of the assailant. The risk is impossible to fully erase.

Still, the record is confirmed by reams of studies that have analyzed the effects of policies like Britain’s and Australia’s: When countries tighten gun control laws, it leads to fewer guns in private citizens’ hands, which leads to less gun violence.

What gun control measures exist at the federal level?

Much of current federal gun control legislation is a baseline, governing who can buy, sell and use certain classes of firearms, with states left free to enact additional restrictions.

Dealers must be licensed, and run background checks to ensure their buyers are not “prohibited persons,” including felons or people with a history of domestic violence — though private sellers at gun shows or online marketplaces are not required to run background checks. Federal law also highly restricts the sale of certain firearms, such as fully automatic rifles.

The most recent federal legislation , a bipartisan effort passed last year after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, expanded background checks for buyers under 21 and closed what is known as the boyfriend loophole. It also strengthened existing bans on gun trafficking and straw purchasing.

— Aishvarya Kavi

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What are gun buyback programs and do they work?

Gun buyback programs are short-term initiatives that provide incentives, such as money or gift cards, to convince people to surrender firearms to law enforcement, typically with no questions asked. These events are often held by governments or private groups at police stations, houses of worship and community centers. Guns that are collected are either destroyed or stored.

Most programs strive to take guns off the streets, provide a safe place for firearm disposal and stir cultural changes in a community, according to Gun by Gun , a nonprofit dedicated to preventing gun violence.

The first formal gun buyback program was held in Baltimore in 1974 after three police officers were shot and killed, according to the authors of the book “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States.” The initiative collected more than 13,000 firearms, but failed to reduce gun violence in the city. Hundreds of other buyback programs have since unfolded across the United States.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton announced the nation’s first federal gun buyback program . The $15 million program provided grants of up to $500,000 to police departments to buy and destroy firearms. Two years later, the Senate defeated efforts to extend financing for the program after the Bush administration called for it to end.

Despite the popularity of gun buyback programs among certain anti-violence and anti-gun advocates, there is little data to suggest that they work. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research , a private nonprofit, found that buyback programs adopted in U.S. cities were ineffective in deterring gun crime, firearm-related homicides or firearm-related suicides. . Evidence showed that cities set the sale price of a firearm too low to considerably reduce the supply of weapons; most who participated in such initiatives came from low-crime areas and firearms that were typically collected were either older or not in good working order.

Dr. Brendan Campbell, a pediatric surgeon at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and an author of one chapter in “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States,” said that buyback programs should collect significantly more firearms than they currently do in order to be more effective.

Dr. Campbell said they should also offer higher prices for handguns and assault rifles. “Those are the ones that are most likely to be used in crime,” and by people attempting suicide, he said. “If you just give $100 for whatever gun, that’s when you’ll end up with all these old, rusted guns that are a low risk of causing harm in the community.”

Mandatory buyback programs have been enacted elsewhere around the world. After a mass shooting in 1996, Australia put in place a nationwide buyback program , collecting somewhere between one in five and one in three privately held guns. The initiative mostly targeted semiautomatic rifles and many shotguns that, under new laws, were no longer permitted. New Zealand banned military-style semiautomatic weapons, assault rifles and some gun parts and began its own large-scale buyback program in 2019, after a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch. The authorities said that more than 56,000 prohibited firearms had been collected from about 32,000 people through the initiative.

Where does the U.S. public stand on the issue?

Expanded background checks for guns purchased routinely receive more than 80 or 90 percent support in polling.

Nationally, a majority of Americans have supported stricter gun laws for decades. A Gallup poll conducted in June found that 55 percent of participants were in favor of a ban on the manufacture, possession and sale of semiautomatic guns. A majority of respondents also supported other measures, including raising the legal age at which people can purchase certain firearms, and enacting a 30-day waiting period for gun sales.

But the jumps in demand for gun control that occur after mass shootings also tend to revert to the partisan mean as time passes. Gallup poll data shows that the percentage of participants who supported stricter gun laws receded to 57 percent in October from 66 percent in June, which was just weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo. A PDK poll conducted after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde found that 72 percent of Republicans supported arming teachers, in contrast with 24 percent of Democrats.

What do opponents of gun control argue?

Opponents of gun control, including most Republican members of Congress, argue that proposals to limit access to firearms infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. And they contend that mass shootings are not the result of easily accessible guns, but of criminals and mentally ill people bent on waging violence.

— Annie Karni

Why is it so hard to push for legislation?

Polling suggests that Americans broadly support gun control measures, yet legislation is often stymied in Washington, and Republicans rarely seem to pay a political price for their opposition.

The calculation behind Republicans’ steadfast stonewalling of any new gun regulations — even in the face of the kind unthinkable massacres like in Uvalde, Texas — is a fairly simple one for Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Asked what the reaction would be from voters back home if he were to support any significant form of gun control, the first-term Republican had a straightforward answer: “Most would probably throw me out of office,” he said. His response helps explain why Republicans have resisted proposals such as the one for universal background checks for gun buyers, despite remarkably broad support from the public for such plans — support that can reach up to 90 percent nationwide in some cases. Republicans like Mr. Cramer understand that they would receive little political reward for joining the push for laws to limit access to guns, including assault-style weapons. But they know for certain that they would be pounded — and most likely left facing a primary opponent who could cost them their job — for voting for gun safety laws or even voicing support for them. Most Republicans in the Senate represent deeply conservative states where gun ownership is treated as a sacred privilege enshrined in the Constitution, a privilege not to be infringed upon no matter how much blood is spilled in classrooms and school hallways around the country. Though the National Rifle Association has recently been diminished by scandal and financial turmoil , Democrats say that the organization still has a strong hold on Republicans through its financial contributions and support, hardening the party’s resistance to any new gun laws. — Carl Hulse, “ Why Republicans Won’t Budge on Guns .”

Yet while the power of the gun lobby, the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate and single-voter issues offer some explanation, there is another possibility: voters.

When voters in four Democratic-leaning states got the opportunity to enact expanded gun or ammunition background checks into law, the overwhelming support suggested by national surveys was nowhere to be found. For Democrats, the story is both unsettling and familiar. Progressives have long been emboldened by national survey results that show overwhelming support for their policy priorities, only to find they don’t necessarily translate to Washington legislation and to popularity on Election Day or beyond. President Biden’s major policy initiatives are popular , for example, yet voters say he has not accomplished much and his approval ratings have sunk into the low 40s. The apparent progressive political majority in the polls might just be illusory. Public support for new gun restrictions tends to rise in the wake of mass shootings. There is already evidence that public support for stricter gun laws has surged again in the aftermath of the killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. While the public’s support for new restrictions tends to subside thereafter, these shootings or another could still produce a lasting shift in public opinion. But the poor results for background checks suggest that public opinion may not be the unequivocal ally of gun control that the polling makes it seem. — Nate Cohn, “ Voters Say They Want Gun Control. Their Votes Say Something Different. ”

Gun Control Research Paper

One of the top arguments for improved gun control is the relationship between the guns in the family and the likelihood that one family member will be injured by another family member during a family conflict or even by mistake. The weapons which were meant to be a way of self-defense often happen to be the reason behind tragedies. Whereas conflicts may take place in many families, only the quarrels in families which have access to firearms can end up in serious injuries or even homicides. Furthermore, families which have weapons in their homes have higher rates of suicides. Therefore, the easy access to guns in the families results in injuries, homicides and suicides in the family members and thus it explains why the right for owning guns should be restricted.

A gun in the home can significantly increase the likelihood of domestic violence homicides in the family. According to the findings of the recent studies, the risk of domestic homicides increased more than three times in the homes which had one or more guns (Crooker, 2003, p. 78). At the same time, a gun in the home can mean that the likelihood that one of the residents will commit a suicide increases at least three times, compared to homes which have no guns. The US Congress has found out that domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, and at least in 7% of cases aggressors use firearms. In other words, having access to guns, most families are still unable to protect themselves from the outer threats, but have plenty of opportunities to harm their family members. Importantly, the stats say that a gun kept in the household is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or a friend than an intruder. The counterargument of most proponents of gun rights focus on the emotional condition of a person who commits a homicide instead of the means by which a homicide becomes possible. However, compared to other weapons, such as knives or to the use of bodily power, in the cases when guns are used, victims have low chances to survive. Even though the homicides in most cases take place under the influence of alcohol or a temporary rage, the access to a gunfire does make a difference, often leading to dramatic consequences for everyone involved in the situation.

Most homicide studies, however, claim that all murderers share a common set of characteristics, and easy access to guns doesn’t turn an ordinary person into a potential murderer. The scholars claim that not every person can commit a crime in a moment of rage even if a gun is available. Therefore, the axiom “more guns equal more death” ignores the preconditions which can make a person use a firearm for committing a homicide. The stats say that virtually all individuals who become involved in violent crimes have prior records of offenses (Lytton, 2008, p. 68). The vast majority of potential murderers are social deviants with life histories of violence, substance abuse, or even psychopathology. Importantly, for most homicides, the victim-offender relationship is based on prior illegal actions. At the same time, all family murders have a long history of preceding assaults. On the other hand, the problem with this argumentation that despite the more or less obvious preconditions for becoming a murder, the access to firearms makes the violent crimes possible. One of the suggestions made by the anti-gun laws proponents is proper testing of individuals before giving them a permission to carry guns. Therefore, the statistics from homicide studies might become an important contribution to the anti-gun legislation and procedures, so that the potential offenders should be deprived access to weapons.

International evidence and retrospective analysis have shown that stricter gun laws can reduce homicide rates. Thus, by comparing gun control laws and homicide rates in England and the United States, it becomes obvious that the drastic gun control laws in England are associated with significantly lower homicide rates (Kate & Mauser, 2007, p. 662). Making further conclusions from those stats, it can be stated that reducing gun ownership can mean reducing the homicide rates at the same time. However, the question of homicide rates can be more complicated than it might seem. Thus, during the 1990s, the homicide rates in the United States significantly declined, even though the gun laws remained unchanged. Experts claim that homicide rates might depend on a wide range of other important factors, including those of abortion legalization and the increase of inmate population, which also took place in 1990s in The United States. Meanwhile, apart from the comparison of England and the United States homicide rates discussed above, there are many nations with widespread gun ownership and lower murder rates than the states that severely restrict gun ownership. However, despite all the controversial data and stats of the homicide rates in their relation to the gun laws in different locations, it can be concluded that further research is necessary for establishing statistically significant relationships between the gun laws and homicide rates, which in their turn depend on a variety of factors.

The evidence from numerous governmental reports and statistics show that the gun in the home significantly increases the risks of homicide or suicide in the family. Even though access to gun doesn’t turn an ordinary citizen into a potential murderer, the use of a gun results in more severe consequences compared to those of other weapons or only bodily force. Therefore, stricter gun laws or at least improved gun permission and training procedures might improve the existing situation with homicide rates and violent crimes in the United States.

Reference List

Crooker, C. (2003).Gun control and gun rights. Greenwood Press: Westport, CT.

Kates, D. & Mauser, G. (2007). Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide? Harward Journal of Law and Public Policy, 30(2): 649 – 694.

Lytton, T. (2008). Suing the gun industry: A battle at the crossroads of gun control and mass torts. The University of Michigan Press: Michigan, MI.

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Recently, President Obama and other Democratic members of Congress have strongly pushed for a critical discussion on gun control . Around the country, many teachers and professors are pushing their students to think about this subject and write at length about ways to limit gun violence. By no means are these papers easy to write; due to the emotional ramifications of this issue, writing a paper on gun control must be done in a very professional manner. So consider  buying a research paper on gun control with Ultius and feel at ease knowing your sample paper will be completed by a professional. Even if your needs are not quite as involved as this, our team can compose a high-end argumentative essay for you on this or any other debate.

Before doing that, though, feel free to check out this sample research paper on gun control. It was written in support of President Obama’s policy suggestions, and may be helpful to those of you interested in learning more about this increasingly important subject. Ultius writers are familiar with a wide variety of subjects and writing styles, so keep in mind that we offer position papers on both sides of every ideological spectrum. Don’t hesitate to contact our sales department if you need help. 

The Second Amendment: A Threat to Civilized People?

Gun control has recently created a massive uproar throughout the United States because of the recent, and sincerely unfortunate, Sandy Hook school shooting that occurred last December. In response to this tragedy, Democratic leaders have been attempting to capitalize on the incident and push forward their respective agenda of limiting gun rights. As one can imagine, there are a surfeit of opinions on the subject, but despite this fact, I have come to affirm that I am strong believer in strengthening gun control . Although the right to bear arms should continue to be guaranteed by the Second Amendment, our nation’s need for heightened security in school classrooms and other public places is something that should no longer be ignored.

The Gun Problem: Why an Unlimited Right to Bear Arms is Bad

Since becoming a staple of American society through the second amendment , guns have been instrumental in altering contemporary warfare. The dangers of these weapons are not a secret; it is simply their mere nature. Some argue that guns were created to protect, while others suggest that they were built to destroy and cause the death of one’s intended target. Frank Zimring, a University of Chicago Law scholar, stated in his piece The University of Chicago Law Review, “The rate of knife deaths per 100 reported knife attacks was less than 1/5 the rate of gun deaths per 100 reported gun attacks” (Zimring 722). This statistic expresses the sincere lethality of guns compared to other forms of weaponry. One of the main reasons for this data stems from the misuse of guns , which unlike other weapons, can cause death to the user and those around him or her even on accident. If this unfortunate probability can be decreased, how can we stand around as the leader of the free world and let nothing be done?

In the American political system, gun control has been a debate for many years ; however, recent shootings have forced it into a large spotlight. The problem that splits gun control proponents from their opposition is the language of the second amendment of the constitution. The founding fathers of this nation believed that , “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” (U.S. Constitution). This multifaceted sentence from the Bill of Rights brings many quarrels to life with its simple diction. It is very open to interpretation, which is what causes both sides of the debate to have “legal stances” on the matter. The National Rifle Association (NRA), which is the nation’s largest gun advocacy organization, is led by the philosophy that it, “[hosts] a wide range of firearms-related public interest activities of the National Rifle Association of America and other organizations that defend and foster the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans.”

What gun advocates in the NRA often fail to understand, however, is the conscionable limits to the Second Amendment. As 27-year serving Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia stated in the majority opinion of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision, “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited” (Scalia). This lead Scalia to also state that, “it is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” These sanctions are legal proof that the second amendment allows for the government to regulate the distribution, ownership, and use of weapons. On top of that, Scalia, regarded as the most conservative justice, clearly highlights that gun control is useful and at times necessary. 

Gun Control Legislation Timeline Infographic

Legislation is Necessary to Reduce Gun Violence

Past and present governmental action of this nation proves that the danger that arises from the use of guns is so high that it values the general security of citizens higher than the individual rights of gun owners. The proof of this higher need for security is presented in the 1993 Brady Laws, 1994 Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act (also known as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban), and the more recent gun control proposal presented by President Barack Obama. Obviously, the total eradication of guns is extreme and unrealistic. What American political leaders can do, however, is implement stronger laws and regulations to decrease the supply, access to, and lethality of the weapons available to the general public. This would help to decrease gun deaths, gun violence, and raise national security.

Even a year before the Federal Assault Weapons Ban went into effect, the ever-important Brady Laws were enacted. These laws required a 5-day waiting period on all gun sales so that thorough background checks could be implemented. Also, whenever multiple handgun purchases were to occur, they were now allowed to be reported to the police. Those that were deemed mentally ill by the courts were not allowed to purchase weapons and American leaders emphasized that the Laws may have in fact prevented gun violence from spreading. According to Bob Adams, these legislative actions had extremely positive effects, something a properly cited research paper can easily demonstrate.

The Gun Control Debate, Adams’ academic journal that was released after the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, highlights that, “deaths from firearms in the United States dropped sharply, from almost 40,000 in 1993 to 29,700 in 2002. And the number of licensed gun dealers dropped from 285,000 to 104,000 in three years.” Through statistical analysis of decreasing death rates from guns and decreasing gun supply after the implementation of the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban, Adams exposes the positive effect these laws and regulations had on the overall security of the nation. President Obama sees the need for the reinstatement of these sensible regulations and has incorporated them into his gun control proposal. 

Newtown School Shooting: It’s Time to Take Action against the NRA

On January 8 th , 2013, the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting occurred and took the lives of 27 students and teachers. This tragedy, at first, dropped jaws across the nation but immediately after caused an enormous social riot about gun control and the laws surrounding them. Shortly after the incident, President Obama made a statement on the matter and sent his condolences to those directly affected. He did not, however, let his stance on gun control be known. About one week later, Vice President Joe Biden came out at a press conference stating that, “something will be done about the gun violence,” indicating that the President had intentions to strengthen the gun control laws (Fox News). The important underlying information to be noted is Joe Biden’s political résumé. During the Clinton Presidential era, Biden was a very strong proponent and leading force of the 1994 Assault Weapons ban.

On January 15, 2013, White House press confirmed President Obama’s proposal to ban assault rifles, high-capacity gun magazines, and increase the rigor and efficiency of the background check system in an effort to “close loopholes [in the system],” a similar rhetoric to his stance on American capitalism (Adams 956). When presenting the outline of his plan, the President stated that, “we have to do what we think is best; we may have to come up with answers that are outside of politics and that’s what I expect congress to do” (Christopher 1). This powerful statement calls for methods outside of the political realm and yearns for more of a moral decision to be made. Obama’s proposal also includes increases in national safety through monetary incentives for schools, the confirmation of a director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (A.T.F.) by Congress, and the implementation of a national ad campaign on gun safety and regulation. In terms of weaponry, this proposal mirrors the gun ban of 1994 because it is just a reinstatement of the original ban packaged with an abundance of extra regulations. This executive branch action is a testament to how much wellness, safety, and security is a priority to this nation’s leaders.

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There will be a Battle Ahead

The American political system is in an ever-prevalent struggle of finding the best balance between security and freedom , and gun control is a prime example of this paradox. No decision can ever be perfect in our government because it will leave one side distraught; however, there can be action taken to make the best, most encompassing decisions as possible. In terms of gun control, current security concerns posed by excessive guns and the ease of obtaining their power suggest that action must be taken immediately if we are to save the lives of others. With all of this in mind, one can see how the pro-gun control regime is legally, socially, and morally prepared to strengthen the laws and regulations on the use of, supply of, and civilian access to weaponry. This nation prides itself on its foundations of freedom, security, and the pursuit of happiness, as these constitute the reasons why people decide to live in this country and pursue their dream of success here. Yet guns consistently infringe on this base philosophy of security and this is what makes them truly the plague of the American dream.  

Works Cited

Adams, Bob. "Gun Control Debate." CQ Researcher 12 Nov. 2004: 949-72. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.

Christopher, Tommy. "President Obama Signals He Will Push Assault Weapons Ban." Mediaite President Obama Signals He Will Push Assault Weapons Ban Comments . Mediaite, 14 Jan. 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.

District of Columbia v. Heller. No. 07-290. Supreme Ct. of the US. 26 June 2008.

Guns V. Constitution. Digital image. AZPlea. Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.

"NRA Philosophy." National Rifile Association . NRA, 04 May 2002. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.

Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, H.R.3355, 103rd Congress (1993-1994), GPO. Retrieved January 26, 2013.

Pye, Jason. Assault Weapons. Digital image. United Liberty. N.p., 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

Stirewalt, Chris. "Biden No Joke on Gun Control." Fox News. FOX News Network, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

Zimring, Frank. The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer, 1968), pp. 721-737.

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Restructuring the Gun Control Conversation

In the US, the gun control conversation feels set in stone. We’ve fallen into a pattern: inevitably, a high-profile gun death leads to an outcry from the pro-gun-control crowd, to which anti-gun-control advocates respond with an amendment that’s existed since 1791. Partisan gridlock and interest group funding has made it hard to pass national legislation on guns, but our conversations share part of the blame. For as long as I can remember, arguments regarding gun control have relied on the same statistics, laws, talking points, and stories. These stale discussions seem unable to make a dent in the American gun violence epidemic–so what should we be talking about? For more productive discussions (and hopefully, solutions) I propose we make the following three changes to our conversations about guns in America.

Change 1: Talk about shooting rates, not gun-related death rates

The most common measure of harm done by guns is the number of gun deaths in a given year or area. This is the number most people are familiar with, the number that identifies cities or neighborhoods as most dangerous, and the number that tracks how gun violence changes over time.

Yet there is a glaring problem with measuring gun violence by fatalities: medical care influences which gunshot victims live or die. For example, while data on this subject is hard to find, one study found that only ⅓ of gunshot wounds were fatal [1]. This skews our perception of gun violence in several ways.

Before exploring how our understanding is skewed, I must acknowledge that it is hard to draw reliable quantitative answers to these questions. This is part of the problem. Gun-related deaths are tracked, reported, and compiled into reports; it is much harder to find statistics on gun violence or medical care for victims. Shifting the conversation toward gun violence rather than gun deaths could lead to more data on the true degree of gun violence in America today.

That being said, based on other medical advancements, it’s reasonable to assume that doctors’ ability to treat gun wounds has improved in the last 50 years. Thus, changes in gun deaths over that time may not reflect any meaningful change in the amount or severity of gun violence; it may instead reflect more people recovering from what would have once been fatal.

Second, because the quality and accessibility of medical care varies dramatically by community [2], communities with similar amounts of gun violence may have different amounts of gun-related deaths. This may lead us to think gun violence is worse in one city/neighborhood/group than in another, simply because people who get shot in one community get to a top-tier hospital quickly, while people who get shot in the other community die on the commute or on the operating table.

Finally, because US hospitals have the experience and equipment to handle gunshot wounds, comparing our country’s gun-related death rates to global death rates might not tell the full story. The US has more gun deaths per capita than other high-income countries [3], but there are several developing countries whose rates are even higher than ours. How might this statistic change if their medical care was as advanced as ours? How would our rates of gun-related crimes, injuries, or hospitalizations compare to those in developing countries?

Change 2: Broaden the focus beyond mass shootings

Mass shootings are terrible tragedies, and Americans are getting far too used to hearing about them in the news. However, compared to other forms of gun violence, they are uncommon. Because of their brutality, mass shootings leave a disproportionate impact on the national consciousness, but their victims account for only a fraction of the gun violence in America. According to the Pew Research Center, 48,830 Americans were killed with guns in 2021. If a mass shooting event is defined as an incident where four or more people are shot, there were 61 in 2021 (the most ever recorded in one year), leading to 706 deaths. By comparison, there were 26,328 gun-related suicides and 20,958 gun-related murders [4].

America has to find a solution for the ballooning number of mass shootings, but we also need to find a solution for gun violence in general. Proposed solutions for mass shootings (such as limiting access to automatic or semi-automatic weapons or arming teachers in schools) will make no dent in the tens of thousands of lives taken by suicide, domestic violence, or gang violence. These shooters tend to use different weapons and have different motivations than the mass shooters we hear so much about, and our gun control policies need to account for them. Focusing our gun control conversation on the most prevalent types of violence is the first step to those improved policies.

Change 3: Examine the racial implications of gun laws

As this article makes clear, I believe gun violence is more widespread than our gun fatality numbers report and more commonplace than our focus on rare mass shootings leads us to believe. In general, I want solutions to this crisis and I am personally in support of more gun control. However, as we propose and debate gun control legislation, we often fail to consider how the laws will be implemented. In particular, we ignore the effects implementing gun laws may have on people of color.

In practice, a ban on possessing a certain type of weapon is a ban on having that weapon in your possession when you are searched by authorities. Yet, as is common knowledge that minorities–particularly Black and Hispanic men–are pulled over or investigated by authorities at much higher rates than other people. One study found that Black people were blacks were about 95 percent more likely than white people to be stopped by police officers while driving and 115 percent more likely to be searched [5]. If laws are written and enforced incorrectly, the war on guns might end up having a similar effect as the “War on Drugs”, making illegal gun possession a party trick among rich white kids and a hefty prison sentence for young black men.

This effect is already observed with the gun laws in place today. The Harvard Law Review cites this sobering statistic: “seventy percent of all defendants convicted of federal firearms offenses were minorities” [6]. While the prevalence of gun violence among minority communities warrants discussion, it is beyond the scope of this article. this statistic certainly does not mean that seventy percent of all people violating gun control laws were minorities. Instead, it shows that law enforcement is already over-policing minority communities, and we have no reason to believe this practice would stop if we created harsher gun control measures.

Above all, the American gun violence epidemic cannot be left unchecked. Something has to break the stalemate that has permitted hundreds of thousands of people to die, and I hope that changes like these will pave the way, clarifying our understanding of the status quo so we can finally change it.

[1] https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/december/study-shows-329-people-are-injured-by-firearms-in-us-each-day-but-for-every-death-two-survive [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2728684/ [3] https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country/ [4] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ [5] https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffic_stops.php#:~:text=Taking%20into%20account%20less%20time,in%20searches%20of%20white%20drivers . [6] https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-135/racist-gun-laws-and-the-second-amendment/

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    Gun Control, Explained. As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise, gun control — a term used to describe a wide range of restrictions and measures aimed at controlling the use ...

  20. Gun Control

    30th May, 2023 One of the top arguments for improved gun control is the relationship between the guns in the family and the likelihood that one family member will be injured by another family member during a family conflict or even by mistake. The weapons which were meant to be a way of self-defense often happen to be the reason behind tragedies.

  21. Gun Control Research Paper

    Categories: Gun Control Gun Violence Research. Download. Essay, Pages 4 (976 words) Views. 469. Over the past few years, the United States has witnessed a series of tragic incidents related to gun violence. These events have raised important questions about how such tragedies can be prevented. One key solution is the implementation of stricter ...

  22. Pro/Against Gun Control Argumentative Essays

    3 Pages 1491 Words Gun Control Does Not Work In United States Gun Control Gun Violence Over the past couple of weeks, I have been researching gun control trying to find why it's useful in America. Having many accounts of gun violence in America, many Americans say that the second amendment is outdated and that we need stricter gun laws.

  23. Research Paper on Gun Control [Infographic]

    The Gun Control Debate, Adams' academic journal that was released after the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, highlights that, "deaths from firearms in the United States dropped sharply, from almost 40,000 in 1993 to 29,700 in 2002. And the number of licensed gun dealers dropped from 285,000 to 104,000 in three years.".

  24. Restructuring the Gun Control Conversation

    In the US, the gun control conversation feels set in stone. We've fallen into a pattern: inevitably, a high-profile gun death leads to an outcry from the pro-gun-control crowd, to which anti-gun-control advocates respond with an amendment that's existed since 1791. Partisan gridlock and interest group funding has made it hard to pass national legislation on guns, but our conversations ...