Gun Control

6 Pages 1406 Words

One of the biggest issues in the United States today seems to be gun control. The government is constantly proposing legislation for more and more gun control. Slowly they are chipping away at our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. You must ask yourself: For what reason does the government want to restrict law abiding citizens from owning guns? Certainly government is not so naive to think criminals will adhere to gun control laws. There just may be an underlying motive for gun control. After all, people would be easier to control if they were defenseless. Few public policy debates have been as dominated by emotion and misinformation as the one on gun control.
Banning guns to reduce crime makes as much sense as banning alcohol to reduce drunk driving. Indeed, convincing evidence shows that civilian gun ownership can be a powerful deterrent to crime. In 1966 the police in Orlando, Florida, responded to a rape epidemic by drafting a highly publicized program to train 2,500 women in firearm use. The next year rape fell by 88 percent in Orlando (the only major city to experience a decrease that year); burglary fell by 25 percent. Actually, of the 2,500 women not one ended up firing her weapon; the deterrent effect of the publicity sufficed. Five years later Orlando's rape rate wasstill thirteen percent below the pre-program level, whereas the surrounding standard metropolitan area had suffered a 308 percent increase.

During a 1974 police strike in Albuquerque armed citizens patrolled their neighborhoods and shop owners publicly armed themselves; felonies dropped notably. In March 1982 Kennesaw, Georgia, enacted a law requiring members of each household to keep a gun at home; house burglaries fell from 65 per year to 26, and to 11 the following year. Comparable publicized training programs for gun-toting merchants distinctly reduced store robberies in Highland Park, Michigan...