Is Gun Control an Effective Way to Control Crime

Subject: Sociology
Pages: 6
Words: 1395
Reading time:
6 min
Study level: College

Introduction

One of the basic rights people seem to have regardless of their ethnic affiliation or location in the world is the right to live. However, every single day once went on the streets, every human being puts his or her life at risk of life termination by a gun. When speaking globally, almost two thousand people are injured by gunshots on a daily basis, with those injuries being fatal for 25% of the victims (“Gun violence – key facts,” n.d.). While it may seem at first sight that such statistics require immediate refusal from gun utilization, there is a cognitive dissonance caused by the fact that people do not feel safe when disarmed anymore. As a result, they buy themselves a gun for protection, thus enhancing the overall violence network.

In order to combat the issue, world leaders were urged to launch gun control policies that would restrict or ban one’s ability to freely possess any kind of firearms and guns in general. The very idea of monitoring gun utilization is, by all means, an efficient decision in terms of global disarray. However, the core issue here lies in the fact that people who tend to act violently are practically impossible to control within the policies paradigm. Hence, while gun control is the right thing to do in the situation’s context, its efficiency is questioned by the overall statistics displayed since the policy introduction. Gun control is beneficial as a means of prevention, not as a tool to combat global catastrophe.

Gun Control As a Notion

While practically anyone has already heard the word combination “gun control” and had the general idea of the meaning it conveys, not many people have actually dwelled upon the definition of this notion. To begin with, the term was formed on the US historical background, with the state launching the debate over gun possession and utilization several decades ago. Although slightly modified, the questions raised in terms of the discussion remained practically the same: what individuals are allowed to possess a gun, are there any exceptions in the pattern, and what are the situations when people are given legal permission to shoot?

Since the 1960s, people have fallen into two categories: the ones who feel unsafe with people buying guns and those who perceive the restrictions as a violation of self-defense rights. However, in terms of the American gun-rights debate, a turning point appeared in 2008, when the Second Amendment to the US Constitution secured gun possession as an individual right of defense (Schuppe, 2018). As a result, more than 33% of the US population believes this right to be unequivocal in the context of the flawed national security system, making people think of their own safety. In order to obtain a better understanding of the issue, it is important to define major reasons behind the motivation to possess a gun in the first place.

Gun Possession Reasons

Such a radical attitude towards gun possession is, by all means, predetermined by a variety of reasons that make residents feel themselves in danger when disarmed. According to a recently conducted survey, almost 300 people were asked about their attitude to keeping guns in households and reasons for that possession in case they had one. The results showed that the reasons included:

  • The consequences of physical violence;
  • The consequences of burglary/robbery;
  • Domestic violence at home;
  • Dysfunctional (dangerous) neighborhood (Vanek & Schmidt, 2017).

Hence, the vast majority of the population does not obtain guns for the purpose of direct violence, the external factors make them fear the risk of being harmed. On the contrary, however, the more people possess guns, the more fear arises around the issue of global safety, making such a choice not an exhaustive option for self-defense.

One of the most important reasons behind gun possession and crimes based on this matter is the global problem of police brutality, corruption, and power abuse. Over the past decades, a series of crimes committed by the police were exposed, diminishing already unstable trust in the law-enforcement agencies. The reality of the 21st century shows how people who are supposed to serve and protect fellow citizens abuse their power and enforce violence in inappropriate cases. Moreover, according to the researchers, mass gun possession leads to police frequently abusing fatal shootings, as the person can be armed (Kivisto et al., 2017). With the existing possession limitations, however, the fatal shootings rate decreases significantly. Moreover, many police mistreatment happens on the basis of racial or ethnic prejudice, which distorts the overall police reputation considerably.

As a result, people are strongly unwilling to communicate with law enforcement even on the subject of gun possession in the household, as they are afraid of being accused or even arrested. Although there are, in fact, many cases that fatal shootings were performed as a defensive mechanism from armed people, today’s misuse of this issue leads to police officers planting fake guns in case of shootings. It goes without saying that gun control as a means of regulation should be present in the state’s legislative system. However, how can this process be considered efficient if there are no exact numbers of armed citizens within a certain geographical location?

The answer to this rhetoric question may lie in the government’s ignorance in terms of social justice for fellow residents. Bearing in mind that violence begets violence as well as fear breeds fear, it is not the vast majority of the population that should be held responsible for committing a crime. People with no trust in humanity and government protection are left with no other choice but to execute justice in the ways available for them. Hence, gun violence is far from being a rapidly emerging threat, as its core issues stemming from years of injustice. Another important argument in support of gun control inefficiency concerns the fact that it is primarily focused on limiting the issue and not solving it in the long run. In fact, according to the analysts, some major gun possession restrictions like a ban on selling guns to drug abusers and minors, have a positive impact on the overall statistics (Kleck et al., 2016). However, the legislative patterns of gun control do not have access to all the sources of gun trade, making it easy to launch illegal commerce. Taking these facts into account, it may be concluded that it is the faulty system regulating gun control that makes the whole concept empirically inefficient in the first place.

Future Gun Control Implications

It was estimated in the course of the discussion that the general notion of gun control does not bear any ambiguity. In fact, the idea implementation later faces a variety of obstacles caused by corruption, cruelty, and ignorance. To begin with, it should be the law enforcement’s priority to eradicate the underground gun business that benefits from the already existing legislative bans on weaponry. Instead, police workers often focus on isolated cases of gun possession. Furthermore, if there currently is no possibility to completely ban gun possession due to the Constitution’s content, there is an opportunity to estimate how many guns are now in possession, at least legally. In such a way, the data collected can help calculate the potential risk of gun density in a specific area.

Finally, while it sounds like a utopian story, the most beneficial way to prevent gun possession abuse would be to completely reorganize the law enforcement structure. Nowadays, people are divided into two major groups of those who believe the police are there to help, and those who are afraid of the ones who are supposed to protect them. Quite frequently, the latter group includes ethnic minorities, discriminated against by the police. Once the root of the issue is closely examined, the chances of gun violence are quite likely to be reduced due to healthy communication within a community.

Conclusion

Gun control has now become one of the most discussed subjects on both social and legislative levels due to its controversy. While many people claim the structure to be an efficient way to combat violence, I tend to conclude that the idea within existing law and social paradigms is too limited to create an actual impact on the system. Hence, it is the law enforcement that should be held responsible for the chaos and violence that suffocates people all around the world.

References

Gun violence – key facts. (n.d.). Web.

Kivisto, A. J., Ray, B., & Phalen, P. L. (2017). Firearm legislation and fatal police shootings in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 107(7), 1068-1075.

Kleck, G., Kovandzic, T., & Bellows, J. (2016). Does gun control reduce violent crime? Criminal Justice Review, 41(4), 488-513.

Vanek, S., & Schmidt, D. (2017). The complex causes of gun ownership in the US (Doctoral dissertation, Uni Wien).

Think About Your Writing

Creating a strong argument requires a variety of skills that create a symbiosis to convince a recipient to adhere to one’s thoughts. In the course of this argument creation, I realized how important it is to operate with facts concerning all the issue’s perspectives. When presenting them in the paper, the main thought subconsciously seems to be more convincing and well-considered

Before enrolling in the English Composition course, I have never thought of myself as a writer. On the contrary, I perceived myself as one of those individuals that can experience a full emotional spectrum without the ability to express these feelings personally. However, during the course, I realized that the ways in which I live through these emotions could be formulated once you start to pay attention to the words you can use. The most striking aspect of my personality I was lucky to open in terms of this course was the scope of life experience I already have. Since any writing is about the experience, I learned how to find a perfect metaphorical correspondence to the issues concerning the global community today.