Gun Control: What is the
Answer?
Gun control has been
hotly debated probably since guns were invented.
There is no resolution, it continues to be battled with little or no
apparent progress made. “Regardless of the political stance regarding gun
control, it is important to realize that the issue is one that is as old as the
inception of the country itself and will continue to be an ever-present issue
of dispute for years to come” (Laws.com, 2017, para. 7).
According to Laws.com
(2017), while there is a correlation between gun availability and violent
crime, empirical evidence does not show that gun control will have any
affect. “Regardless
of the measures to be taken, it still remains unclear if further restrictions
on firearms or less regulations will effectively help reduce crime and murder
rates (para. 12).
I am not a gun
enthusiast. I have never been a hunter
or into competitive shooting. I did,
however, serve a career in the military, so I know how to handle a weapon. I also know that owning a gun is not about
being able to kill someone, but it can be about preventing someone from killing
you. In my mind, there are fundamental
flaws with gun control. I believe we are
better off arming more good guys than we would be by disarming all the good
guys.
The primary flaw I see
with gun control is the statistics all come from what the bad guys are doing
with guns, but all of the controls, restrictions, and actions to ban guns are
focused on and will impact the good guys who own guns legally and handle them
safely and responsibly. The bad guys
will not be affected. Adding another
criminal charge to their case will not likely change their behavior. Gun control will only serve to create many
more unarmed, helpless victims.
“You won’t get gun
control by disarming law-abiding citizens.
There’s only one way to get gun control: Disarm the thugs and the
criminals, lock them up and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least
lose it for a very long time… It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict
harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I
happen to know this from personal experience”.
-Ronald Reagan
In 2009, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives estimated there were 310 million guns
in the United States. In 2015, 9.3
million guns were manufactured globally.
About half of those were purchased by people living in the United
States. Yet according to a 2017 Gallup
Poll, gun ownership among Americans was 42 percent (Kiger, 2013). That is almost one gun for every person that
lives in the United States but less than half of us claim to own a gun. There are people stockpiling weapons no
doubt. Who will collect the 150 million
or so unaccounted for guns. This will be
a daunting task, if not impossible.
I have never thought of
gun ownership as an ethical issue any more than I do car ownership, or crossbow
ownership. Our founding leaders believed
that keeping and bearing arms is a right and an important one at that. They made it unconstitutional to infringe
upon that right. If gun ownership is an
ethical issue consider this, if guns exist anywhere, it would be unethical to
ban ownership to anyone.
If all guns were
destroyed and banned, I think we would still be having a similar conversation
but the object in question would be swords or knives or clubs. We are attempting to solve the
problem (why are people killing each other) by removing the tool. Any number of tools will accomplish the
objective. Unless, of course, we are
only concerned with the killing caused by people using guns. King (2017) looked at locations that have gun
controls in place. In 1996, Australia
implemented strict gun controls. Indeed,
gun violence has been greatly reduced but the murder rate is unchanged. The same is true for the United Kingdom, and
Ireland. “Gun control has no significant
impact on murder rates” (King, 2015, para. 7).
Abolishing gun ownership
could easily spark our next civil war.
People will not give up their guns without a fight. LaFollette (2007) made a prediction based on
this concept. “In the present political
climate, the abolition or serious control of guns in the United States is
unlikely to work and even less likely to happen. There are far too many people who desperately
want guns. There are far too many people
who own guns. Any attempt to disarm the
society would be beset with problems like those that plagued prohibition” (p.
194).
The opposing argument is
equally passionate. LaFollette (2007)
argued that based on cultural differences and the presence or absence of guns
in that culture creates different results.
Not only should the absence of guns reduce murder rates, it could
actually change the culture to one less violent by reshaping values which
partly (with available guns) lead to the high murder rate in America.
The cost of gun ownership
demands limitations. U. S. children are
17 times more likely to be killed by a gun, twice as likely to commit suicide
and ten times more likely to do it with a gun, and nine times more likely to
die of an accidental gunshot wound.
Recognizing the gun
culture in America, gun control advocates are looking at different ways to
achieve their goals. One is to regulate
gun ownership like automobile ownership.
Guns would be tagged and titled at the point of sale, owners would get
training and take tests, health requirements would apply, owners would have to
purchase liability insurance, and be re-certified on occasion (LaFollette,
2007). Another is to selectively
restrict or ban semi-automatic weapons and/or handguns.
Guns are inherently
dangerous and cause unacceptable risk to others. One’s autonomy cannot place
the autonomy of another at risk (LaFollette, 2007).
For every point there is
a valid counter point. This debate will
continue until something makes the entire argument obsolete. Until that time each side will continue to
develop arguments and counter arguments.
What else can they do? There is
no answer to the question of gun control.
Thee is not much argument
that guns in the wrong hands and used with bad intentions create horrible
results: murder, innocent deaths, and suicide.
This is unacceptable but taking guns away from law-abiding citizens is
not the answer and will not solve the problem.
How does one isolate the criminals and irresponsible owners from the responsible
gun owners? There is no easy answer to
this question. We must hold people
responsible for their crimes. Yes, even
the gun owner that left weapons unsecured at home for the children to
discover. It makes no sense to take any
action that does not address the problem.
The first step, if progress is ever going to be made, is for both sides
to loosen up their armor a little and communicate instead of arguing. This could open the door to finding common
ground. Common ground problems can be
solved.
~Pete
References
Kiger, P., J. (2013, February
4) 10 big questions in the U.S. gun control debate.
HowStuffWorks.com." Accessed 2018, July 24 from https://people.howstuffworks.com/10-questions-in-gun-control-debate.htm
King, J. (2015). The
facts that neither side wants to admit about gun control. Retrieved from
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-facts-that-neither-side-wants-to-admit-about-gun-control/207152/
LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden,
Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.
Laws.com (2017). A full
overview of gun control. Accessed 2018, July 24 from https://gun.laws.com/gun-control/
Reagan, R. (n. d.). Gun
control. Retrieved from http://ronaldreaganquote.com/tag/reagan-on-gun-control/
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