The Need for Gun Control - Essay Example

The Need for Gun Control At present there are more than 300,000,000 guns in the hands of US citizens. (nra, 2006) The murder rate in the USA is more than ten times that of any other advanced Western country and most of those murders are committed using one of the millions of guns (fbi, 2006). These facts alone should suggests that there is indeed a need for gun control in America. One of the main reasons given for not changing the current laws by people who own guns is that they are guaranteed the right to "bear arms" in the American Constitution.

This is the highest law in America, and any country should be careful before changing its laws, so these arguments need to be addressed. The second amendment to the US Constitution, where the right to bear arms is guaranteed, was written to enable the citizens of the new country to defend themselves against possible attack from England if it sought to retake its recently free colony. Obviously this particular situation n is no longer a worry, and so the very basis for the right to bear arms no longer exists.

Another argument for gun control is that once the sales of all guns (except those used by farmers etc.) is banned the number of crimes that use guns will eventually go down. At first, because there are so many guns in existence, this may not occur, but guns are complex tools that need maintenance and replacement on a regular basis. Eventually most of the handguns in existence would become unusable, criminals would not be able to get hold of them and crimes would be committed without the use of a gun.

A major reason for gun control is the number of young people and even children who accidentally kill themselves while 'playing' with guns they have gound that belong to their parents but which have not been securely stored. More than a thousand children a year die in this manner. Hundreds of others are killed in violence between children/teenagers that turns deadly because they have access to guns. To put this in perspective, far more children have been killed by guns since 9/11/2001 than were killed by the terrorists on that day.

This is a tragedy that can only be solved by gun control. Most household handguns that people have to "protect themselves" are in fact used by criminals against their owners when people try to use them in this way. Thus an episode in which perhaps a burglar would steal some valuables from a house, but do no more harm, has turned deadly. A person can replace a computer, not his life. To conclude, there is a great need for the control of the sale and distribution of guns throughout the world in general, and in American in general.

If the country wants to live up to its promise it must stop the wholesale slaughter that is occurring in many of its cities, a slaughter caused by the fact that it is often easier to buy a gun than an alcoholic beverage. This is an absurd situation that needs to be changed. _____________________________________________ Works Citedwww.fbi.govwww.nra.gov