Is Controlling Guns an Effective Way to Control Crime in the US?

Is Controlling Guns an Effective Way to Control Crime in the US?

 There is a rise in gun violence and related crimes in the USA, starting from the family level, the community, and the entire nation reaching internationally. Averagely, it is estimated that nearly thirteen kids below the age of nineteen are killed every day in the USA by gunfire. Many others are injured severely from gunfire. Homicides are committed using guns, and the African-American youths are the most affected by these crimes using handguns. There is a debate in the state concerning the regulation policies of firearms. Some urge that there is a need to regulate firearms, while others urge against the move. The manufacturers, people selling guns, and owners will obviously be against regulating guns as the move will result in losing significant profits, and an increase in insecurity. In this report, the focus is on whether restricting guns and other arms will reduce crime in the community and country as a whole. The possible recommendations will be addressed and what the future has for the state.

Organizations that want limits in owning guns in the country keep pushing for regulatory policies, especially from the general public and only allow specialized people to carry arms in the nation. Looking on the other side of the coin, the National Rifle Association is claiming that the constitution of the land in the Second Amendment allows every resident an absolute right of owning a firearm. Thus it is fighting against any attempts of regulating guns manufacture, distributing, and selling in the country. Their solution is on punishing criminals who use firearms severely with heavy fining so that the public can regulate itself on the use of firearms. That is a demand-reducing strategy of addressing the issue.

Reasons for controlling guns

Several organizations and human rights activists in the country advocating for a gun-control campaign have several reasons to support their arguments. They believe that more circulation and distribution of guns, especially the handguns, is the reason for increased violent criminal activities in many parts of the state. Another argument is that people owning or possessing a handgun are on the high risk of being killed by police, other gun holders, or criminal gangs. The instinct that kicks in when you suspect to be in a dangerous situation may prompt one to pull out their gun, in the process, it results to them being killed by cops. Criminal gangs will follow a person owning a gun so as to steal it away from that person and use it to commit a crime in other locations. An additional reason for a need to regulate firearms in the state is the fact that keeping or ensuring guns are out of the hands of criminals will reduce and or prevent violent criminal activities in society. They believe keeping the arms out of reach will minimize the incidents of crime in the neighbourhoods, ensuring that accessing and owning guns is restricted to only specific bodies like the police, security agencies, and specific companies or prominent people only. The last reason why there are campaigns in the US for regulating guns is that taking guns from criminal gangs will reduce violence in the community significantly. The government to conduct re-possession of guns from unlicensed people, illegal firearms, and organizations misusing guns. Setting up secret patrols in the community to investigate the gangs likely to own illegal guns and arrest them, keeping the arms they use away from their access.

Reasons Against Gun Control

The main issue why organizations like the National Rifle Association are advocating against gun control is that guns don’t kill people, but people are the ones killing one another. Hence, if many people carry guns as a way of protecting themselves, there will be no violence in the country. Another argument is that the laws governing gun ownership are violating the Second Amendment right of individuals keeping and bearing firearms. These laws cannot minimize violent crime in the country. They propose a severe sentence for the individuals found committing crimes and killing using guns. When the court system is strict to such people, the other general public will fear and reduce incidences of engaging in violent crimes.

Effects of gun’s policies on violent crimes in the US

Violent criminal acts are those that range from forceful raping, burglary, aggravated assaults, manslaughter, and murder incidents in the state. The other part is the increased suicide rates as a result of owning a gun, accidents at home due to poor handling or testing of firearms, plus the justifiable homicides like killing a suspect by an officer on duty. Studies and information by the Federal Bureau of Investigations show that nearly one million and two-hundred thousand violent crimes took place in the US in the year 2015. There were more than seven hundred thousand aggravated assaults, a hundred and twenty-four thousand rape cases, fifteen thousand murder or manslaughter reports, and an overall crime rate of nearly seventy percent of people using guns. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, show more insights causing violent crimes in the country. It indicates that seventeen thousand homicides took place in the USA, and firearms caused seventy-three percent of these deaths in 2015. Other data from the Emergency Departments indicate that there were approximately one million, five hundred thousand people who were admitted in the hospital due to assaulting. And 3.8 percent of these were resulting from gun-incidences.

The previous decade shows an increase in gun violence is linked to an increase in gun ownership, but the survey does not indicate whether more gun-owning is the reason for increased violent crimes. There is no direct measure of the prevalence of gun ownership in the country. The USA is a country with the most incidences of gun violence in the world, and survey done by the American Journal of Medicine shows that residents of USA are twenty-five more likely to get killed by a gun. For instance, several incidences have recently happened in the USA, showing the rate of killings and violent crimes committed as a result of having a gun. In August 2019, a gunman killed twenty-two people at Walmart in El Paso, an incident of domestic terrorism in the state. Same August, a man killed his sister with other nine people in Ohio while wounding more than twenty-seven others. Another incident had happened in California, where a teenager aged nineteen killed two children plus an adult in a festival in Gilroy. He injured himself in the process and thirteen more got injuries from the incident.

Factors Associated to Increase in Gun Violence in the USA

These killings happening in the state are connected or blamed on several factors like mental health issues affecting the perpetrators. Although studies show that the claim does not hold any basis. Actually, mentally-ill people are likely to become victims of gun violence, and blaming them is a way of laying blame to the wrong group. Another blame is put on violent video games that many people are addicted to watching, which results in the development of violent behaviours. Scientific research refutes this study as the perpetrators were likely less addicted to violent media. What comes out as valid research and connection of gun violence amongst the perpetrators is the fact that they are having a history of domestic violence, which grows with time, becoming deadly and resulting to the perpetrators using firearms. From the shootings that happened in different locations in the US, there is a connection that many had previously abused women in their life. A survey done in February 2019, shows that people who own guns have threatened other people with the firearm as compared to those who do not own them.

There is also a connection of more gun buying to higher rates of accidental gun-deaths, according to the survey published in the journal Science, where forty adults with twenty kids were killed by additional gun buying. Unsecure keeping of guns also results in accidental injuries and deaths in the nation. In 2015, nearly thirty million homes owned firearms in the USA, and less of these homes have adhered to gun regulations and ownership rules of gun storage. From the study above, it is clear that the USA is facing several challenges associated with gun violence. Many people are falling victim to it, while the state is losing precious resources in addressing these issues of gun violence. The question of controlling guns, therefore, becomes more alarming and effective measures have to be put in place as fast as possible to address it and reduce crime rates in the country.

Possible Solutions to Combat Gun Violence in USA.

States require to carry out mental-health education in various locations to sensitize the public on the use, ownership, and control of guns in the community. There is a need for states in the country to enact laws that require the buyer of firearms to get permits and licenses which involve background checking to reduce gun violence. A study conducted in 2015 regarding the 1995 Connecticut Law, where every gun holder has to show their permits was connected with a reduction of homicides to nearly forty percent. Acquiring a gun should be same as owning a vehicle in the US. Car safety has been a priority for manufacturers to consider in the country, similar measures should be put in the manufacturing of guns so that the safety of its handlers and users is considered. Everyone should have a legal permit requiring them to own and handle a firearm, while owners need specialized training on the way to keep, store, carry, and use a gun. When all the measures are followed to the latter, there will be a reduction in the incidences arising from gun use.

Doctors could have a solution to educating families about the safety of guns from reaching the hands of children. Nearly seventy-five of kids going to grade one are strong enough to shoot a gun, and a three-year-old is curious about objects around them. Therefore, parents need to devise safer ways and places in the house to keep firearms. Using safes with a locked pattern is a better way of ensuring kids do not access guns at home. Another solution is for the companies manufacturing firearms, which need to invest more in smart-gun technologies so that a gun can never be unlocked without using fingerprint patterns. President Barrack Obama proposed the use of smart-technology on guns in January 2013. Currently, there are no smart-guns in the USA, indicating that there is a slow implementation of specific safety laws on firearms. A study done by Johns Hopkins University in 2016, indicates that sixty percent of gun buyers would be willing to modify it to be a smart-gun if possible. It means that the technology would be a prime-market opportunity for manufacturers to exploit. Therefore, more research is required in that area for better safety measures in the future. The police require to use less forces in their arrest-approaches, which may prompt a suspect to pull out a gun and get shot. Cases involving mass shootings need swift addressing and solving from the court systems so that victims can get justice and reduce the likelihood of revenging. Policies that support more research on gun violence could help find better solutions to managing gun violence in the US.