Pros And Cons Of Stop And Frisk

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For decades, gun violence had been an extreme debated problem in the US. Over the past 200 years almost every day, the United States has more gun deaths from accidental or unintentional. Every time a firearms incident led to a tragic death, American politics and public debates over gun laws took place. However, there the voices of the people against guns were too little compared with the numerous supporters of gun. In fact, with 310 million guns in circulation in the market, the United States is one of the countries most used weapons in the world. One of the concrete actions has been taken to restrict guns and crime is stop and frisk program in New York City. But after several years of implementation, it has faced a lot of opposition from the …show more content…

Therefore, stop and frisk is not an effective and acceptable way to deal with America’s problem with gun violence.
Stop-and-frisk is a crime prevention action that allows a police officer to stop and frisk a pedestrian without probable cause to arrest, if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime (Stop and Frisk). It was first approved by the Supreme Court in 1968 after the case Terry v. Ohio, which was considered as a landmark decision. The purpose was to reduce the number of crimes and limited use of firearms; but after several years of implementation, it has faced so many oppositions from the people, and did not really get the positive results.
First of all, stop and frisk is an act of racism. Stop and Frisk is a great evidence of an ineffective policy which, under the guise of …show more content…

The problem here arises that the gun itself cannot kill people, but the people who own it to use it as a weapon to kill another person. In addition, not all gun owners are criminals, so the confiscation of guns is not the optimal solution. In the essay “Just Take Away Their Guns”, James Q. Wilson said “There are some 200 million guns in private ownership, about one-third of them handguns. Only about 2 percent of the latter are employed to commit crimes” (Wilson). That means for every 100 people owning guns, only 2 people use it to perform criminal acts. Not all gun owners are criminals, the majority of people own guns for self-defense purpose. Therefore, the most important thing that the government needs to do is to closely manage the buying / selling guns rather than just take them away from people. If a person wants to buy a gun, he or she needs to have a background checked, provide an appropriate reason to buy it. On the other hand, the police should reward to anyone who discover the illegal use of firearms. For the past twelve years, police department data shows that officer made more than five million stop, but the number of illegal guns were found only 0.02 percent (Badger). Also, shootings aren’t decreasing by nearly enough to justify the increase in stops and frisks. From 2002, shootings in New York City have only decreased by 3.9% (Policy

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