Throughout my life I have heard numerous arguments on the position of gun control and how best to curb violence by increasing regulation. Americans have had an individual common-law right to own guns since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. The Second Amendment recognizes that Americans have an individual constitutional right to own and use guns. All have the right to keep and bear arms, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the right to live in a safe society. However, strict gun control alone cannot solve our gun problems. Statistics prove that most crimes are not committed with legally bought guns but rather guns acquired through “black-market” sources. As I have learned it is not the gun that causes the problem but human behavior within communities troubled by gun violence.
Craig R. Whitney provides a well organized account of both sides of the gun control debate in Living with Guns, A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment. He does this by providing an exhausting array of statistics from some of the most crime ridden cities in the country. He believes the way to solve this argument is to accept what the Second Amendment recognizes, that Americans have a constitutional …show more content…
Statistics show that strict gun control laws by themselves do not lead to less gun violence. There are more factors besides the availability or prevalence of guns that go into explaining violent crime rates (for example the most important single reason that gun violence rose sharply in Chicago and the District of Columbia was drugs). Criminals have access to about 500,000 guns stolen from private homes every year. Society needs to come up with effective ways to keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals, fugitives, users of illegal drugs, the mentally disturbed, people subject to restraining orders, illegal aliens, minors and people discharged less than honorably from the armed
Craig R. Whitney provides a well organized account of both sides of the gun control debate in Living with Guns, A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment. He does this by providing an exhausting array of statistics from some of the most crime ridden cities in the country. He believes the way to solve this argument is to accept what the Second Amendment recognizes, that Americans have a constitutional …show more content…
Statistics show that strict gun control laws by themselves do not lead to less gun violence. There are more factors besides the availability or prevalence of guns that go into explaining violent crime rates (for example the most important single reason that gun violence rose sharply in Chicago and the District of Columbia was drugs). Criminals have access to about 500,000 guns stolen from private homes every year. Society needs to come up with effective ways to keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals, fugitives, users of illegal drugs, the mentally disturbed, people subject to restraining orders, illegal aliens, minors and people discharged less than honorably from the armed