Is Gun Control an Effective way to Control Crime? (Essay Sample)

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Is Gun Control an Effective way to Control Crime?
Introduction
There has been a heated debate on the issue of gun control on whether they are effective in reducing crime or not. All the citizens of the United States are interested in reducing gun violence. This is because gun violence, which results from the ownership of guns by a large number of people, is very harmful to the American society in terms of causing violence. Every single day, about thirteen children in the United States under nineteen years of age are killed by use of guns (Sampathkumar, 17). The other leading cause of deaths for youths aged between ten to nineteen years is homicides, which have also been accelerated by the increase in the number of guns in circulation. This is the number one death cause for black males in this age bracket (Youth Violence, 201). These homicides are committed using firearms and especially the handguns. There has been a heated debate between those who believe gun ownership should be controlled and those who think that there should be no gun control laws and that everyone should be allowed to freely own guns. On the side of those who want gun control laws put in place, they want the government to crack down on the manufacturers of guns, the sellers and also the owners to the point that guns cannot be owned by citizens. Generally, these people want to ensure the availability of guns is limited. On the other hand, the NRA claims that all the citizens are given a right to bear arms by the Second Amendment and therefore it fights any attempt to control the manufacture and sale of firearms (Harwood, 217). As a way to deter crime, the NRA and its allies advocate for tough sentences against those people who use guns to carry out criminal activities (Harwood, 27). Although these laws are a good deterrent to crime, they may not be as effective as gun control laws.
Gun control can reduce crime significantly. There are several points in support of this stance. One such a point is that when there are more guns circulating, the number of crimes that involve guns will be higher. This is because the person has the gun at their disposal and therefore they can use it whenever they want to do crime. This would not be the case if there were gun control laws to ensure that no civilians own guns as this would mean there are less guns circulating, which in turn would reduce the number of crimes that are committed using guns. In addition, when one owns a gun, they are at a higher risk of getting killed than when they do not own a gun. It is also obvious that when guns are kept out of the hands of criminals, the number of violent crimes is reduced. This is because the criminals will not have guns they can use in carrying out criminal activities. Therefore, if the laws are enforced to control the ownership of guns, the guns that are owned by criminals will be taken away from them and so the number of violent crimes that involve guns will be reduced.
The National Rifle Association and allies criticize the arguments that gun ownership should be controlled and claim that gun control cannot reduce crime by any means. They offer another alternative for reducing crime. These claim that it is not guns that kill people and that it is people that kill other people. Based on this, they claim that more people should carry guns as that way, they will be able to protect themselves and this would result in less violent crimes. To advance their argument, they further state that the laws to control gun ownership are not constitutional because they violate the right of the citizens to bear arms provided for in the Second Amendment. They hold that an alternative should be used to reduce violent crimes, this is mandatory sentences against people who use firearms to commit crime. They claim that this will be more effective that gun control laws in reducing crime.
Some of these arguments are not valid. For example, the statistics to support the fact that if there were more guns among citizens to defend themselves with the crime rates would go low is untenable because this would only result in a little decrease because the victims are rarely in a position to use their weapons when they are attacked. In addition, according to the United States Supreme Court has not read the second amendment as having given people personal rights to carry arms. The court sees it as a declaration that the congress must not do anything aimed at displacing the state militias. In addition, even if the people are in a position to defend themselves using the guns they have, the number of deaths resulting from gun violence would increase as this is likely to cause the death of the person who wanted to commit the crime or even both, or even result in a mass shoot out where there are many criminals wishing to rob many people, who will in turn get their guns out to defend themselves.