Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws - Essay Example

The paper discusses claims that maintain the idea that holding guns helps to reduce the number of lives lost and makes life secure. After this, a counter-argument is presented and refuted, followed by a couple of sources that support the original hypothesis.

Discussion
Claims/Main Points
Holding a gun decreases the probability of attack. When people have weapons, criminals, and juveniles have something to worry about. They are not the only ones with power. When they see that their victims have means of defense, they cut down on the violence. They then think before harming them because their own lives are at stake. In this way, fewer lives are lost than if people had no guns to protect themselves. If the latter was the case, criminals would go right ahead and shoot them because they would have no loss of lives to worry about.

To develop this point, a small-scale interview will be conducted. The population will be American citizens. The sample will contain two groups; 1) an armed group and 2) an unarmed group. A series of questions will be asked to educate the readers as to which group feels more secure and has had less trouble dealing with when it comes to criminals. Secondary data from different States will also be used before and after the changing of gun-control laws to find the degree of correlation between gun control and crime. There are over two hundred time series and cross-sectional studies on gun control (Lott, J.R., 2000).

Secondly, I claim that if educated and reasonable people (who are not criminals) own guns, they are less likely to use them than if a juvenile has them. Even if everyone follows the realist approach and believes that they should hold guns and the total number of guns increases, there will still be less crime. This is because the population of normal people that own them, use them at most for self-defense. They do not use these to violate the Constitution and create crime. Again, statistics will be used to show the probability of normal and reasonable people holding guns to do crimes.

Finally, the third main point used to carry my statement is that the Supreme Court also supports it. If the Court believes that individuals should hold guns and if they have changed the gun-control laws country-wide, there must be a very good reason. This reasoning will be explained by viewing previous and current gun-control laws and contrasting them. Laws such as The Second Amendment and the recent landmark ruling upholding will be explicated to develop this point. And again, statistical studies will be used as secondary data to show the correlation between the crime rate and several guns after and before the change in laws.

Counter Argument
There are several opposing viewpoints, for gun-control is a serious, ongoing debate. Many advocates of gun control believe, in opposition to my view that broadening gun-control laws will make the access of handguns for criminals easy. An argument and study by the Brady Center also show that the number of lives lost increases with an increase in guns and a loose gun-control policy (Handgun Control Debate, 2008). This all may be true but to support my argument and to refute this one, I’d say that criminals always have access to guns and weapons and this is what makes them criminals. Even if the Supreme Court had not adjusted the Second Amendment to permit the right to arms, criminals would still procure guns in one way or another. The point is that whether criminals adopt legal means or illegal means to obtain guns, at the end of the day, they always will no matter what. In the paper, I will refute this argument by showing the findings of studies that state otherwise and by describing the work of gun makers such as Smith and Wesson that ensure safety in their guns.

Support
My first source is a renowned book by John R. Lott published in 2000. It is called ‘More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-control Laws’. The strength of this source is that firstly it is a reliable one since it is a published book. Secondly, like my thesis statement, it also opposes gun control and talks about several studies that support the hypothesis that increasing guns decreases the crime rate. Lastly, it is very easy to read and understand because the language is simple. Its only weakness, according to me, is that it is a little outdated since it was published in the year 2000.

My second source is a website and that too a great one. The website article’s strength is that it looks at both sides of the argument and it is updated as to the recent gun-control laws. It is not as reliable as the book but it does have a large database. It has its section on Gun control which is highly informative and partially supports my side of the debate. It has dependable arguments since it mentions the centers and people who have carried out studies on gun control. Read More