FREE ESSAY ON GUN CONTROL

GUN CONTROL

Gun Control
Americans are faced with an ever-growing problem of violence. Our streets have become a
battleground where the elderly are beaten for their social security checks, where
terrified women are viciously attacked and raped, where teen-age gangsters shoot it out
for a patch of turf to sell their illegal drugs, and where innocent children are caught
daily in the crossfire of drive-by shootings. We cannot ignore the damage that these
criminals are doing to our society, and we must take actions to stop these horrors.
However, the effort by some misguided individuals to eliminate the legal ownership of
firearms does not address the real problem at hand, and simply disarms the innocent
law-abiding citizens who are most in need of a form of self-defense.
To fully understand the reasons behind the gun control efforts, we must look at the
history of our country, and the role firearms have played in it. The second amendment to
the Constitution of the United States makes firearm ownership legal in this country.
There were good reasons for this freedom, reasons, which persist today. Firearms in the
new world were used initially for hunting, and occasionally for self-defense. However,
when the colonists felt that the burden of British oppression was too much for them to
bear, they picked up their personal firearms and went to war. Standing against the
British armies, these rebels found themselves opposed by the greatest military force in
the world at that time. The 18th century witnessed the height of the British Empire, but
the rough band of colonial freedom fighters discovered the power of the Minuteman, the
average American gun owner. These Minutemen, so named because they would pick up their
personal guns and jump to the defense of their country on a minute's notice, served a
major part in winning the American Revolution. The founding fathers of this country
understood that an armed populace was instrumental in fighting off oppression, and they
made the right to keep and bear arms a constitutionally guaranteed right.
Over the years, some of the reasons for owning firearms have changed. As our country grew
into a strong nation, we expanded westward, exploring the wilderness, and building new
towns on the frontier. Typically, these new towns were far away from the centers of
civilization, and the only law they had was dispensed by townsfolk through the barrel of
a gun. Crime existed, but could be minimized when the townspeople fought back against the
criminals. Eventually, these organized townspeople developed police forces as their towns
grew in size. Fewer people carried their firearms on the street, but the firearms were
always there, ready to be used in self-defense.
It was after the Civil War that the first gun-control advocates came into existence.
These were southern leaders who were afraid that the newly freed black slaves would
assert their newfound political rights, and these leaders wanted to make it easier to
oppress the free blacks. This oppression was accomplished by passing laws making it
illegal in many places for black people to own firearms. With that effort, they assured
themselves that the black population would be subject to their control, and would not
have the ability to fight back. At the same time, the people who were most intent on
denying black people their basic rights walked around with their firearms, making it
impossible to resist their efforts. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed
one, and these armed men saw their plans work completely. It was a full century before
the civil rights activists of the 1960s were able to restore the constitutional freedoms
that blacks in this country were granted in the 1860s.
Today's gun control activists are a slightly different breed. They claim that gun
violence in this country has gotten to a point where something must be done to stop it.
They would like to see criminals disarmed, and they want the random violence to stop. I
agree with their sentiments. However, they are going about it in the wrong way. While
claiming that they want to take guns out of the hands of criminals, they work to pass
legislation that would take the guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens instead.
For this reason the efforts at gun control do not address the real problem of crime.
The simple definition of a criminal is someone who does not obey the law. Therefore, if
we pass laws restricting ownership of firearms, which category of people does it affect?
The simple answer is that gun control laws affect law-abiding citizens only. By their
very nature, the criminals will continue to violate these new laws, they will continue to
carry their firearms, and they will find their efforts at crime much easier when they
know that their victims will be unarmed. The situation is similar to that of the disarmed
blacks a century ago. Innocent people are turned into victims when new laws make it
impossible for them to fight back. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed
one. An interesting recent development has been the backlash against the gun-control
advocates. In many states, including Florida and Texas, citizens have stated that they
want to preserve their right to carry firearms for self-defense. Since the late 1980s,
Florida has been issuing concealed weapons permits to law-abiding citizens, and these
citizens have been carrying their firearms to defend themselves from rampant crime. The
result is that the incidence of violent crime has actually dropped in contrast to the
national average. Previously, Florida had been leading the nation in this category, and
the citizens of that state have welcomed the change. Gun control advocates tried to claim
that there would be bloodshed in the streets when these citizens were given the right to
carry. They tried to claim that the cities of Florida would become like Dodge City with
shoot outs on every street corner. These gun control advocates were wrong. Over 200,000
concealed carry permits have been issued so far, with only 36 of these permits revoked
for improper use of a firearm. This statistic is easy to understand. It is the
law-abiding citizens who are going through the process of getting concealed carry permits
so that they may legally carry a firearm. Th e people who go through this legal process
do not want to break the law, and they do not intend to break the law. The people who do
intend to break the law will carry their guns whether or not the law allows them to do
so.
Criminals will always find ways to get guns. In this country we have criminalized the
use, possession, sale, and transportation of many kinds of narcotics, but it's still easy
for someone to take a ride and purchase the drugs of their choice at street corner
vendors. Firearms and ammunition would be just as easy for these black-market
entrepreneurs to deliver to their customers. Today, criminals often carry illegal
weapons, including sawed-off shotguns, machine guns, and homemade zip-guns, clearly
showing their disregard for the current laws which make these items illegal. And when
they are caught, the courts regularly dismiss these lesser weapons charges when
prosecuting for the more serious charges that are being committed with the weapons.
The gun control advocates have argued their case by demonizing the gun itself, rather
than addressing the people who commit violent crimes. This is the main fallacy in their
argument. They slyly attempt to claim that possession of a gun turns average citizens
into bloodthirsty lunatics. This theory falls apart under close scrutiny. If legal
possession of a firearm caused this sort of attitude, then why are crime rates highest in
areas such as Washington, D.C. and New York City which have strict gun control laws?
Simply because of the free law that allow any body can get a gun.
The most recent efforts of the gun control lobby has been to claim that certain types of
guns and ammunition are inherently evil. They assign emotional catch phrases such as
assault weapons and cop killer bullets to broad categories of firearms and ammunition in
the hopes that people will believe that some guns have an evil nature. Most people who
are unfamiliar with firearms do not fully understand what these phrases mean, and they
accept the terms being used without question. What people do not often understand is that
the term assault weapon has been defined to include all semi- automatic rifles, and cop
killer has been defined to include any bullet that can penetrate type two body armor. It
comes as a surprise to most people that a large number of simple hunting rifles can do
both. Does ownership of one of these weapons cause people to become mass murderers? It
does not, and we must not fall into the trap of blaming the sword for the hand that
wields it.
So I've shown that the act of making it illegal to own firearms does little to prevent
criminals from getting guns. These laws only restrict people who respect the law itself,
the people who would only use firearms for legal purposes anyway. And when we give people
the right to defend themselves, we find that criminals start looking for other victims
out of fear that they will become the victims themselves. We must work to reduce crime in
the world, but we should look at the problem realistically, and develop plans that would
be effective. It is obvious that gun control laws are neither realistic, nor effective in
reducing crime. Therefore, we must direct our efforts toward controlling crime, not
controlling legal ownership of firearms.