Gun Control

Gun Control
Guns control is a topic that is very misunderstood. Guns, more often than not, get a negative association of death. The majority of the media only focuses on the negatives of guns. The only thing one hears concerning guns is about murder and mass killings. The positives of having guns accessible are many times completely overlooked. This paper compares how the benefits of having guns completely prevails over the claimed benefits of gun control policy.
Citizen Protection
There are roughly over 5,000,000 violent crimes committed every year. Around 8% of these crimes are committed with a visible weapon (Agersti & Smith, 2013). The majority of crimes that are committed with guns though involve illicit guns. The crimes committed are in areas with high gun regulation or gun bans (Sisters, 2002). This evidence shows support to the fact that criminals will find the means to obtain guns regardless of gun bans. Washington D.C. is a great example of this issue; during 1976 to 2008, the period D.C. banned handguns, murder rates there increased on average of 73% while the U.S. murder rate was steadily dropping (Agersti & Smith, 2013). In 1982, Chicago also decided to banned handguns. Five of the surrounding areas followed Chicago’s example and also banned handguns. Chicago only had a decrease rate of murder by 17% where as the U.S. has had a average rate of 25% decrease in murder. What is more interesting is that although murder rates went down, gun violence went up in Chicago. This was not just a small change either, the murder rate with handguns, which were completely banned, increased by an average of 40%. Not only that, the National Academy of Sciences’ did an exhaustive study in 2004 and found that there was ...

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