Hand Guns and Conceal Ability

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Hand Guns and Conceal Ability

The debate of hand guns is highly argued among American citizens. The article "Handgun Bands" from GunCite.com, and the article "Concealed Carry and its Effect on Crime" from CCNCrime.com, advocate the legal possession of a concealed handgun. They attempt to show that legal handguns actually deter crime and violence. The first article "Handgun Bands" takes an emotional approach followed by statistical information to prove the point that handgun bands, or limitations on the ability to purchase and carry a hand gun, do not effectively counter violence. The author begins by giving the statistic from the F.B.I. Uniform Crime Report that over 55% of all murders are committed with handguns. This leads you to believe that the author is an advocate of handgun bands. This idea is quickly thrown out in the next paragraph where it is stated that handguns are more often used in self defense than in crime. The claim is also made that most instances of self defense involving a handgun result in no shots fired.

The question is then brought up, if handguns are banned will violent crime decrease? The author claims that not only will crime not decrease but, will grow resulting in more violence than ever. A survey from the National Institute of Justice shows that 72% of felons that use handguns would simply switch over to other weapons, such as shotguns in order to commit their violent acts. The author then gets information from an article by R. Taylor called "Gunshot Wounds of the Abdomen." This article proves that shotguns and rifles cause much more damage to the abdomen than handguns. The author is also able to show that studies taken by Don B. Jr. in his article ‘Guns, Murders, and the Constitution," show that 54% to 80% of homicides committed with handguns could have just as easily been committed with a long gun.

The author effectively defends his idea that banning handguns will have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, but may actually increase instances of gun crimes. This is due to the fact that civilians would no longer be able to defend themselves effectively.

The second article, " Concealed Carry and its Effect on Crime" tries to persuade the reader that the right to carry concealed weapons will deter criminals. Most of the information in this article is taken from a July 26, 1996-article called "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," written by John R.

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