An incendiary debate has been sparked regarding current gun control legislation in the United States, because approximately 30,000 United States citizens lose their lives to gun-related crime and injury every year (Terror). The question is whether gun control laws should be strengthened to make it harder for potential criminals to possess weapons or kept the same to preserve the rights of the United States citizens. Gun control opponents believe that the answer to this problem is to loosen gun control laws to dissuade potential shooters. Gun control proponents believe that the answer is to tighten gun control laws so that a gun is never put into a potential shooter’s hands. To examine this issue, one must carefully ponder different points of
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After the shootings, an activist group known as Faith United to Prevent Gun Violence held a conference that aimed to petition Congress to make gun laws that require universal background checks, ban high-capacity weapons and magazines, and make gun trafficking a federal crime (Schultz). A majority of the American people wish for stricter gun control measures. However, this also raises a question: do stricter gun control measures actually work? To answer this question, all one has to do is look at the precedents set by other countries, in order to see where they have succeeded in their own respective gun control …show more content…
All handguns in these two countries are banned for all normal citizens (Donohue). These laws result in a fewer amount of firearms in the hands of the people, which results in incredibly low levels of gun-related crime. For instance, in 2008, Japan had 11 total gun-related deaths while the United States had 587 accidental gun-related deaths (Fisher). In the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2011, there were only 52 gun-related homicides, a figure that takes 12 deaths from a mass shooting into account (Feikert-Ahalt). It figures that the two countries with the most stringent gun control also experience some of the lowest rates of deaths stemming from gun use. The answer to the United States’ gun problem is seemingly simple based on these statistics: ban guns entirely. However, it is important to delve a little deeper into the countries’ legislation to get a clearer
After the shootings, an activist group known as Faith United to Prevent Gun Violence held a conference that aimed to petition Congress to make gun laws that require universal background checks, ban high-capacity weapons and magazines, and make gun trafficking a federal crime (Schultz). A majority of the American people wish for stricter gun control measures. However, this also raises a question: do stricter gun control measures actually work? To answer this question, all one has to do is look at the precedents set by other countries, in order to see where they have succeeded in their own respective gun control …show more content…
All handguns in these two countries are banned for all normal citizens (Donohue). These laws result in a fewer amount of firearms in the hands of the people, which results in incredibly low levels of gun-related crime. For instance, in 2008, Japan had 11 total gun-related deaths while the United States had 587 accidental gun-related deaths (Fisher). In the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2011, there were only 52 gun-related homicides, a figure that takes 12 deaths from a mass shooting into account (Feikert-Ahalt). It figures that the two countries with the most stringent gun control also experience some of the lowest rates of deaths stemming from gun use. The answer to the United States’ gun problem is seemingly simple based on these statistics: ban guns entirely. However, it is important to delve a little deeper into the countries’ legislation to get a clearer