FREE ESSAY ON 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 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
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 (Pessan 55). 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 mass
was helpful in fighting off oppression, and they made the right to keep and bear arms a
constitutional 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 (Scorsese 212). 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 judgement. 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. The simple definition of a law-abiding citizen is someone who does
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 (Johnston 322). An interesting recent
development has been the backfire 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 shootouts 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. The 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 not addressing the
gun itself, but rather addressing the people who commit violent crimes. This is the main
inconsistency in their argument. They attempt to claim that possession of a gun turns
average citizens into bloodthirsty lunatics. This theory falls apart under close
examination. 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? And why are crime rates dropping in states such as Florida where
private ownership of firearms is encouraged? Simply stated, legal ownership of a gun does
not cause crime. 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 (Francis 143). 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 America, 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.