The Second Amendment:
America holds a rich history of firearms. One can even claim that without firearms America would not be what it is today. Currently America has never been more split on the idea of firearm ownership. With a variety of pros and cons for Gun Control and Pro-Gun groups both with partisan ties within congress the same questions always appear: Who is entitled to the Second Amendment? Is there a real correlation between gun control and controlling crime? Where does our nation draw the line, and take more steps to prevent mass shooting and reduce deaths caused by firearm, but without completely infringing on a Constitutional Right? For such debate, one thing is almost certain in order to pass this deadlock and that is the need …show more content…
By restricting the amount of amount of firearms available shouldn’t that control or at least reduce crime? Wouldn’t less guns lead to less suicides? Are these possible of achieving by simply restricting gun ownership, Pro-gun groups don’t believe so. There is a lot of data out there to support each side. America owns a great amount of firearms, and that is no secret to the world, “an average 88.8 guns owned per 100 people” (Phillips, 2015). Is this high ownership of firearms associated with high crime rate? If it is, would limiting access to firearms lower the crime rate or, “cause an aggressor to substitute another weapon to achieve a desired outcome” (Altheimer, 2010). We need to understand first that, “We don't have the highest crime rate among developed nations, according to that 2012 U.N. survey, but we do have the highest firearm-homicide rate” (Phillips, 2015). Even if America has the highest firearm-homicide rate, the high amount of firearms available in the U.S. would hold little correlation. According to Theguardian.com the average total of all civilian firearms is around 270 million (Rogers, 2012). With that many guns surely that could explain Americas high firearm-homicide rate, but it doesn’t. The U.S. Department of Justice released and special report on firearm violence, and its finding are interesting in relation to the hundreds of millions of guns we hold as a nation. “Firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011” (Planty & Truman, 2015). What we can conclude from this is that out of the 270 million civilian firearms in America only around 0.000042% of those firearms are used in homicides. It is a small percentage, but would increase when we add the number of suicides that involve a firearm. According to gunpolicy.org, the number of suicides that involved a firearm in 2014 were
America holds a rich history of firearms. One can even claim that without firearms America would not be what it is today. Currently America has never been more split on the idea of firearm ownership. With a variety of pros and cons for Gun Control and Pro-Gun groups both with partisan ties within congress the same questions always appear: Who is entitled to the Second Amendment? Is there a real correlation between gun control and controlling crime? Where does our nation draw the line, and take more steps to prevent mass shooting and reduce deaths caused by firearm, but without completely infringing on a Constitutional Right? For such debate, one thing is almost certain in order to pass this deadlock and that is the need …show more content…
By restricting the amount of amount of firearms available shouldn’t that control or at least reduce crime? Wouldn’t less guns lead to less suicides? Are these possible of achieving by simply restricting gun ownership, Pro-gun groups don’t believe so. There is a lot of data out there to support each side. America owns a great amount of firearms, and that is no secret to the world, “an average 88.8 guns owned per 100 people” (Phillips, 2015). Is this high ownership of firearms associated with high crime rate? If it is, would limiting access to firearms lower the crime rate or, “cause an aggressor to substitute another weapon to achieve a desired outcome” (Altheimer, 2010). We need to understand first that, “We don't have the highest crime rate among developed nations, according to that 2012 U.N. survey, but we do have the highest firearm-homicide rate” (Phillips, 2015). Even if America has the highest firearm-homicide rate, the high amount of firearms available in the U.S. would hold little correlation. According to Theguardian.com the average total of all civilian firearms is around 270 million (Rogers, 2012). With that many guns surely that could explain Americas high firearm-homicide rate, but it doesn’t. The U.S. Department of Justice released and special report on firearm violence, and its finding are interesting in relation to the hundreds of millions of guns we hold as a nation. “Firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011” (Planty & Truman, 2015). What we can conclude from this is that out of the 270 million civilian firearms in America only around 0.000042% of those firearms are used in homicides. It is a small percentage, but would increase when we add the number of suicides that involve a firearm. According to gunpolicy.org, the number of suicides that involved a firearm in 2014 were